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i 

THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



\ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The Text of this book is the same as that which stands 
printed in the Fourth Volume of the ' Invasion of the 
Crimea.' . 



C Q U 1 



9 i 
I (k 



THE 

BATTLE OF BALACLAVA, 




BY 



A. W. KINGLAKE. 



THIRD EDITION. 



feibraiy, 
^Department 
of the {interior, 

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. 
EDINBURGH AND LONDON. 
MDCCCLXXV. 



The Right of Translation is reserved. 



■K<r 3 

ISIS 



By TraasfsX 



CONTENTS. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA, 



CHAPTER I. 

The task of selecting generals of cavalry for a campaign, 
The test of actual service in the field, 
Great advantage enjoyed by England in this respect, 
Her brilliant list of war-service officers, 
Choice made by the Government, 
Lord Lucan, . 
Lord Cardigan, 

Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan regarded conjointly, 
Lord Cardigan's attitude of antagonism to Lord Lucan 
Lord Cardigan's complaint in writing, 
Lord Raglan's severe answer, 
Lord Raglan's appeal to the good feelings of "Lord Lucan and Lord 

Cardigan, . ." 

Inquiry as to the causes which rendered it possible for the Govern 

ment to do as it did, 
General Scarlett, 



PAGE 

1 
1 

2 
2 
2 
3 
11 
14 
18 
18 
18 

19 

20 
23 



CHAPTER II. 



The isolated position of the forces defending Balaclava, 

Increasing strength and boldness of the Russians in the valley of the 

Tchernaya, 
The Balaclava position, 
The town, 

The inner line of defence, 
The plain of Balaclava, 
Conception of the outer line of defence, 
The works constituting the outer line of defence, 
Slight nature of the works, 
Armament of the works, 



27 

27 
28 
28 
29 
31 
33 
35 
36 
36 



VOL. IV. 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE II.— continued. 

PAGE 



How manned, ....... 37 

The Kamara Height left in possession of the enemy, . . 37 

Extent and remoteness of the outer line, . . . . 37 

The force immediately available for supporting the Turks, . . 38 

Sir Colin Campbell's confidence in the maintenance of the position, . 38 

This necessarily communicated to Lord Raglan, ... 39 

Uncertainty as to the sources of Campbell's confidence, . . 39 

Inherent weakness of the outer line, ..... 40 

Collateral arrangements which tended to increase the probability of 

a disaster, . . . . . . .40 

MentschikofT 's purpose of assailing the defences of Balaclava, . 41 
The forces collected for this enterprise, . . .41 

The object of the contemplated attack, .... 43 

Distribution of the Russian force into three distinct bodies, and the 

duties assigned to each, . . . ... .43 

24th October. — Information of the enemy's march obtained by the 

Turks the day before the battle, .... 44 

The way in which the information was dealt with, ... 45 
The morning of the 25th October. — Tidings of the impending attack 

upon the Turkish redoubts, ..... 45 

CHAPTEE III. 

25th October. — The hour before daybreak, .... 46 
Advance of Lord Lucan and his Staff in the direction of Canrobert's 

Hill, . . ' .JS 

Break of day. Two flags seen flying from the fort on Canrobert's 

Hill, 46 

The import of this, ....... 46 

Lord George Paget, in the absence of Lord Cardigan, takes upon 

himself to mount the Light Brigade, .... 47 

Orders from Lord Lucan for the immediate advance of the cavalry, 47 

Vigilance evinced on this occasion by the Turks, ... 47 

The English soldier's want of vigilance, .... 48 

The outlying picket, . . . . . . .50 

The enemy's advance perceived by Lord Lucan and Sir Colin Camp- 
bell, 50 

Intelligence sent off to Lord Raglan, .... 50 

Lord Lucan's disposition of the cavalry and horse-artillery, . . 50 

Lord Lucan's ' demonstrations ' with his cavalry, ... 50 

The enemy pursuing his design, ..... 51 

The advance of General Gribbe from the direction of Baidar, . 52 
He seizes Kamara, and establishes a battery, which opens fire at close 

range on the Redoubt No. 1, . . . .52 



CONTENTS. vii 
CHAPTEE ILL— continued. 

PAGE 

Advance of the central column under General Semiakine, . . 53 

Of Levoutsky's force, ....... 53 

Of Colonel Scudery's column, ..... 53 

Of the Russian cavalry, and the batteries it escorted, . . 53 

The emergency in which Lord Lucan had to act, . . . 53 

His decision, ........ 54 

The Russians were suffered to establish their batteries against Can- 

robert's Hill and the No. 2 Redoubt, .... 55 
Fire answered to by the Turks, and (without much effect) by our 

troop of horse-artillery, ...... 55 

Captain Maude wounded, . . . . . .55 

The troop of horse-artillery sent out of fire by Lord Lucan, . . 5G 

The fort on Canrobert's Hill silenced by overwhelming fire, . 56 

Continued resistance of the Turks, . . . . .56 

Dispositions made by General Semiakine for storming Canrobert's ■ 

HilL . . 56 

The work stormed, . . . . . . .57 

Overwhelming strength of the Russians in point of numbers, . 57 

Close fighting between the Turks and the Russians, :i . . 58 

The fort at length carried, . . . . . .58 

Abandonment by the Turks of the three next redoubts, . . 59 

Their flight under fire of artillery, and pursued in some places by 

Cossacks, . . . . • . . . . 59 

The enemy entering four of the redoubts and establishing himself in 

three of them, 60 
Fresh disposition of our cavalry, ..... 61 
Observations upon the first period of the battle, ... 61 



CHAPTER IV. 

The spot on which Lord Raglan placed himself upon being apprised 

of the attack, . . . . . . . 65 

His dispositions for the succour of Balaclava, and for securing the 

forces on the Chersonese against a surprise, - . .65 

General Canrobert also on the ridge, ..... 68 

His dispositions, . . . . . . 68 

Apparent difference of opinion between the French and the English 

Commanders, . . . . . . .68 

The new disposition which Lord Raglan made of our cavalry division, 69 
Approaching concentration on the west of the Causeway Heights of 

forces with which the Allies proposed to engage Liprandi, . 69 
Isolation of Balaclava, . . . . 70 

Position of Liprandi's infantry at this time, . . . .70 

The Odessa regiment became the index of the enemy's changing 

resolves, . . . . . . . . 70 



viii 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV '.—continued. 






PAGE 


Position of the Kussian cavalry, ..... 


71 


Jabrokritsky's force, . . . 


71 


All these Kussian forces secure for the time against the attack of 




infantry, ... 


71 


The period of licence thus enjoyed by Liprandi, 


71 


The forces now threatening Balaclava, .... 


72 


Their strength, ....... 


72 


The forces that could be forthwith opposed to them, 


72 


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J..LIO fJlOiLL Ul Lljlll^ ct VGilLUlC Willi UlO L<X\(Xllj ? • • • 








The design with which this was resorted to, . 


74 


The advance of the Russian cavalry, ..... 


74 


Campbell's arrangements for defending the approach by Kadikoi, 


75 


Campbell withdrew his men to the foot of the hillock, and caused 




them to lie down, ...... 


76 


Detached body of Russian horse advancing towards the gorge of 




Kadikoi, .... . 


76 


Campbell's soldiers again crown the hillock," .... 


76 


Flight of the Turks, ....... 


77 


Position of Campbell after the flight of the Turks, . 


77 


His determination to impart to the 93d the gravity of the occasion, 


78 


His words to the men, ...... 


78 


Their answer to his appeal, ...... 


78 


Continued advance of the four Russian squadrons, 


78 


Campbell wielding his 93d, ...... 


78 


The fire from their line, ...... 


79 


Its effect, ....... 


79 


The altered movement of the assailing squadrons, 


79 


Campbell's counter-manceuvre, ..... 


79 


Its effect. Retreat of the horsemen, ..... 


79 


Feebleness of the charge undertaken by these Russian squadrons, 


79 


The real nature of the trial sustained by the Queen's troops formed 




iin nn flip billnplr 


79 


The new foe encountered bv the Turks in their flight, 


81 


CHAPTER VI. 




Want of arrangements for an effective look-out, 


82 


Advance of the main body of the Russian cavalry, . 


83 


Its change of direction, ...... 


83 


Its sudden discovery of a great opportunity, .... 


S4 



CONTENTS. 



ix 



CHAPTEE VI.— continued. 

PAGE 



The march of the eight squadrons of Heavy Dragoons which had been 

sent under Scarlett towards the approaches of Kadikoi, . . 84 

Cause which induced Scarlett to dispense with precautions, . . 85 

The order of march, ....... 86 

The ground which had been reached by the 2d squadron of the In- 

niskillings and the Greys at the time now in question, . . 86 

And by Scarlett, ....... 87 

Sudden appearance of the enemy's cavalry on the flank of Scarlett's 

dragoons, . . . . . . . 87 

Scarlett's resolve, ....... 87 

The order he gave, . . . . . .88 

' Scarlett's three hundred,' ...... 88 

Ground taken to the right, . . . . . 88 

The 5th Dragoon Guards, ...... 88 

The 4th Dragoon Guards and the Royals approaching, . . 89 

Scarlett's dilemma, ....... 89 

His decision, ........ 90 

Lord Lucan. The part taken by him after hearing of the advance of 

the Eussian cavalry, . . . . . . .90 

Meeting between Lord Lucan and General Scarlett, ... 92 
The communications between them, . . . 92 

Lord Lucan's part in the attack, ..... 93 

Positions of the six squadrons at the moment anterior to Scarlett's 

charge, . . . . . . . . . . . 93 

The numbers of the Russian cavalry confronting Scarlett, . . 94 

Deliberate and well-executed manoeuvre of the Russian oavalry, . 95 
Its advance down the slope, ...... 95 

The Russian cavalry slackening pace, and coming at length to a halt, 96 
Surmise as to the cause of the halt, . . . . .96 

Deployment effected by the Russians on each flank of their column, 97 
Scarlett's task, ....... 98 

The great numbers of military spectators who were witnesses of the 

combat, . . . ... . . . 100 

Distinctive colours of the uniforms worn by the Russians and the 

English dragoons, . . . . 101 

The group of four horsemen now collected in front of the Greys, . 102 
Scarlett's deviation from the accustomed practice, . „ . 105 

The order he gave his trumpeter, . . . . .105 

Scarlett's advance, . . . . . . .106 

His distance from his squadrons, . . . . .106 

The Russian officer in front of the column at the part where Scarlett 

was about to assail it, . . . . .107 

Scarlett sweeping past the bridle-arm of the Russian officer, and driv- 
ing into the column, . . . . . .107 

General Scarlett in the column, . . . . .108 



X 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER VI.— continued. 

PAGE 

Elliot's encounter with the Russian officer in front of the column, . 108 
The three horsemen riding with Scarlett, .... 109 

The ancient friendship between the Scots Greys and the Inniskilling 

Dragoons, . . . . . . . 109 

The distinguishing characteristics of the two regiments, . . 110 

The temper of the Greys at this time, . . . .111 

Unavoidable slowness of the advance in its earlier moments, . . Ill 

Progress of the advance, . . . . . .112 

Involuntary extension of our line whilst advancing, . . . 112 

The Russian horsemen resorting to firearms, . . . .113 

The officers who charged with the Greys, . . . .113 

The officers who charged with the 2d squadron of the Inniskillings, 114 
Colonel Dalryrnple White at the head of the 2d squadron of the In- 
niskillings, . . . . . . 114 

Major Clarke, . . . . . . . .114 

The charge of the three hundred, . . . . .115 

The manoeuvres of the two Russian wings, . . . .135 

The circumstances under which they were attempted, . . 136 

Lord Lucan, ........ 137 

His order to the 4th Dragoon Guards, • . . . 137 

His alleged direction to another regiment, . . . .138 

The order in which some of the operations of our supports are about 

to be recorded, ....... 139 

The 4th Dragoon Guards, . . . . . .139 

The Royals, ........ 142 

The 5th Dragoon Guards, . . . . . .145 

The melley that was formed in the part of the column attacked by 

the 5th Dragoon Guards, . . . . .147 

Change in the bearing of the combatants, . . . .147 

Efforts made to rally the Greys, . . . . .148 

The order given by Scarlett to Major Conolly, . . . . 150 

Hunt's squadron of the Inniskillings, . . . . 150 

The officers present with the squadron, .... 150 

Major Shute, . . . . . . .151 

Captain Hunt, . . . . . . .151 

Position of the squadron, . . . . . .151 

Major Shute's order, . . . . . .151 

The charge of Hunt's squadron of the Inniskillings, . . 151 

The 4th Dragoon Guards, . . . . . . .153 

The breaking of the column, . . . . .154 

Retreat of the whole body, ...... 154 

Attempts of our dragoons to rally, ..... 155 

The pursuit of the enemy by our dragoons, .... 155 

Fire of artillery, . . ... . . 155 

Results of the fight between the Russian cavalry and Scarlett's Bri- 
gade, . . : . . . . 156 



CONTENTS. 



XI 



CHAPTER VI.— continued. 



PAGE 



The admiration excited by the exploit of Scarlett's Brigade, 


157 


The congratulation addressed to General Scarlett by Lord Raglan, . 


158 


Comments upon the fight, ...... 


158 


The time occupied by the fight, ..... 


160 


CHAPTER VII 




The Light Brigade at the time of Scarlett's engagement, 


161 


Its neutrality, . . 


161 


Impatience of the brigade, . ' . . . . 


161 


And of Lord Cardigan, ...... 


162 


The surprise with which the neutrality of the Light Brigade was 




observed, . . . . 


162 


The cause which palsied the Light Brigade at the time of Scarlett's 




engagement, ...... 


164 


The kind of experience which has a tendency to prevent men from 




putting sensible constructions on orders, 


166 


Incident making the error more signal, .... 


169 


By bringing into public contrast the qualifications of Lord Cardigan 




and Captain Morris, ...... 


169 


Lord Lucan's message of reproof to Lord Cardigan, . 


174 


CHAPTEE VIII. 




Lord Raglan's instantaneous perception of the new phase into which 




the battle had passed, ...... 


175 


The change that was wrought in the position of the Russians by the 




defeat of their cavalry, ...... 


175 


Lord Raglan's purpose, . . . . . 


176 


Circumstances under which Lord Raglan determined to appeal to his 




cavalry, . . . . 


179 


The third order 


179 


Lord Lucan's construction of it, . . • . 


180 


The impatience and anger amongst men of the Headquarter Staff, . 


182 


The ' fourth order,' ....... 


183 


Captain Nolan, ....... 


184 


CHAPTEE IX. 




The position of the Russian army at the time when Nolan reached 




Lord Lucan, 


187 


Intentions of Liprandi at this period of the action, . 


189 


Lord Raglan's perfect apprehension of the state of the battle, 


190 



xii 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE IX.— continued. 

PAGE 

Two points in the enemy's position available for attack, . . 190 

The valley that lay between them, ..... 191 

Position of our cavalry at this time, . . . . . 191 

Arrival of Nolan with the ' fourth order,' . . . . . 191 

The ' fourth order,' . . . . . . .192 

Lord Lucan's reception of the order, . . . .194 

The altercation between Lord Lucan and Nolan, . . .195 

Lord Lucan's determination, ..... 202 

Lord Lucan's order to Lord Cardigan, .... 203 

CHAPTEE X. 
I. 

Dispositions for the advance of the cavalry down the North Valley, 207 
Lord Cardigan and his Staff, . • . . . . . 208 

Lord Cardigan's impression as to the nature of the task imposed 

upon him, ....... 211 

" Advance of Lord Cardigan and the Light Brigade, . . . 211 

The appearance of Captain Nolan in front of the brigade, . . 211 

His probable object, . . . . . . .212 

Nolan's fate, . . . . . . . .214 

Question as to the degree in which blame justly attached to Nolan, 215 

II. 

Movement on the part of the enemy which shows the exact adapta- 
tion of Lord Raglan's written orders to the exigency of the 

hour, ........ 216 

Gradual awakening of the Russians to the opportunity which our 

Light Brigade was offering them, . . . .220 

Powerful fire opened upon the advancing brigade from both flanks, 221 

Officers acting with the two regiments of the first line, . 1 . 222 

Continued advance of the brigade, ..... 223 

The pace, . ....... 223 

- Lord Cardigan's rigid way of leading the brigade, . . . 224 
Increasing difficulty of restraining the pace in the first line, . 225 
State of the first line, ...... 225 

- Casualties in Lord Cardigan's personal Staff, . . . 225 
Continued advance of Lord Cardigan and his first line, . . 226 

III. 

The advance of the three regiments acting in support, . . 230 

Officers present with the 11th Hussars, .... 230 

With the 4th Light Dragoons, ..... 230 

With the 8th Hussars, ...... 231 

The order in which the ' supports ' advanced, . . . 231 



CONTENTS. 



Xlll 



CHAPTER X.— continued. 
IV. 

PAGE 

The near approach* of our first line to the battery, . . . 240 

Lord Cardigan's charge into the battery at the head of his first line, 241 

V. 

Small portion of the first line led by Captain Morris which outflanked 

the battery, and was immediately confronted by Russian cavalry, 243 

Morris's charge, . . . . . . 244 

Morris wounded and taken prisoner, .... 246 

Other incidents in this part of the field, . . . 248 

VI. 

Continued advance by Lord Cardigan in person, . . . 249 

His isolation, ....... 249 

His advance towards a large body of Russian cavalry, . . 250 

Endeavour to take him prisoner, ..... 251 

The movement in retreat by which he disengaged himself from his 

Cossack assailants, . . . . . .252 

The devotion with which, down to this time, Lord Cardigan had led 

his brigade, . . . . . . 252 

VII. 

Lord Cardigan's return through the battery, . . . 253 

His predicament, ....... 253 

His retreat, . . . . ... . 256 

VIII. 

The Lancers who had charged under Morris, . . . .258 

The groups of combatants constituting the main remnants of the first 

line, . . . . . . 259 

The group under Captain Jenyns, ..... 259 

Group formed of men of the 17th Lancers, .... 259 

Mayow's assumption of command over these, . . . 260 
Mayow's order to the men, . . . . . .260 

Men under O'Hara, ....... 261 

Mayow's charge, ....... 261 

His advance in pursuit, ...... 261 

His halt, . .262 

Operations of the forces actively supporting the first line, . . 262 

IX. 

The feelings with which the French saw our Light Cavalry advance 

down the North Valley, . . . . . .262 

The Chasseurs d'Afrique, ...... 263 



XIV 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTEE X.— continued. 

PAGE 

The celebrated 4th regiment of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, . . 263 

General Morris, . . . . ... . 264 

His determination, . . " . . . . 264 

D'Allonville's attack, ....... 265 

Moderate extent of the losses sustained byiD'Allonville in proportion 

to the service rendered, ...... 267 

The brilliancy of this achievement of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, . 267 

X. 



The 11th Hussars, 

The 4th Light Dragoons, 

Their entrance into the battery, 

The combat which there followed, 

Further advance of Lord George Paget, 

The 8th Hussars, 



268 
270 
270 
271 
273 
273 



XL 

State of the battle at this period, . 275 

The retreat of the Eussian Cavalry, ..... 277 

The need there was of fresh troops in order to clench the victory, . 278 

XII. 

Lord Lucan, . . . . . . . . 279 

The question now forced upon his attention, . . . .281 

His decision, . . ... . . . . 282 

The Greys and the Royals ordered to fall back, . . 282 

Severity of the fire which had been sustained by these regiments, . 282 
Lord Lucan's conclusion as to the only use that could now be made 

of the Heavy Dragoons, . . . . . . 283 

The brigade kept halted accordingly, .... 283 

General Scarlett and Colonel Beatson, . . . . 283 

- The Light Brigade disappearing in the smoke at the foot of the 

valley, . . . . . . . . 284 

The full import of Lord Lucan's decision, .... 284 

Our Heavy Dragoons at the time when the Light Brigade was out of 

sight at the foot of the valley, ..... 285 

XIII. 

The Light Brigade, . . 286 

Colonel Mayow and his fifteen lancers, . . . . 286 

Their junction with the 8th Hussars, .... 286 

Liprandi's battalions on the Causeway Heights, . . . 287 
Three squadron's of Jeropkine's Lancers seen forming in rear of the 

8th Hussars, ....... 287 

Colonel Shewell the senior officer in this emergency, . . 288 



CONTENTS. 



XV 



CHAPTER X.— continued. 






PAGE 


His charge, ........ 


288 


JJeieat and night 01 the Russian Lancers, .... 


290 


Shewell's retreat, ....... 


ooi 
Avi. 


Al v . 




The 11th Hussars and the 4th Light Dragoons, 


294 


Their retreat, . . . . . ... 


294 


Approach of the Eussian cavalry in pursuit, .... 


295 


Lord George Paget's appeal to his regiment, .... 


295 


Its effect, . . 


296 


Discovery of a body of Russian cavalry formed up across the line of 




retreat, ........ 


296 


Means for meeting the emergency, ..... 


297 


Position of the interposed force, . . , . 


300 


T"f"Q ■fVvpmsi'Hrm finn fj"n"noT*pn"f q^tpti cH~Ti 

xiio luiiiidtiuii oiiiu. <x^jp til oj.il jbiatrJUgiiij • ■ » ° • 


300 


Its sudden change of front, . . 


301 


Advance and sudden halt of the column, .... 


302 


The nature of the collision which then occurred, 


302 


Continued course of the two retreating regiments, 


306 


T.mvl Cr&rivcT(* T*fi cfp+'c; lTinniw jjq "f*n "flip "fn'fp r»f "flip "fivcf* linp 

JUUJ.U. VToUigC JL iMitJb O UlL^UlIj/ do \j\J tllO ItlLC UJ. vllKj llloU llliCj • • 


309 


XV. 




The escape of Sir George Wombwell, . . 


310 


The escape of Captain Morris, ..... 


311 


Morris and Nolan, ....... 


313 


A VI. 




The remnants of the brigade at this time, .... 


314 


Lord Cardigan's address to the men, ..... 


314 


The first muster of the Light Brigade after the charge, 


314 


The killing of the disabled horses, ..... 




The losses suffered by the brigade, ..... 


315 


The supposed fate of Captain Lockwood, .... 


317 


The small number of prisoners taken by the Russians, 


319 


The small amount of loss sustained by our troops after once closing 




with the enemy, . 


319 


AVll. 




Who brought the first line out of action ? 


319 


And who brought out the supports ? . 


320 


XVIII. 




Interview between Lord Raglan and Lord Cardigan, 


321 


Lord Raglan's opinion of Lord Cardigan's conduct in the charge, 


321 


Interview between Lord Raglan and Lord Lucan, . , 


322 



xvi 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X.— continued. 
XIX. 

PACK 

General Liprandi's questions respecting the exploit of the Light 



Brigade, ........ 324 

XX. 

- Duration of the combat called the 'Light Cavalry Charge,' . . 326 
Lord Eaglan's privately expressed opinion of the charge, . . 326 

General Bosquet's criticism on the charge, . . . .327 



CHAPTER XI. 

Liprandi's counter-march of the Odessa battalions, . 
Deliberations of General Canrobert and Lord Raglan, 
The determination of the Allies, 
Close of the battle, ..... 

CHAPTER XII. 
I. 

The kind of importance which can be attached to the battle of Bala- 



clava, ........ 334 

Summary of the battle, . . . . . .335 

II. 

The loss of ground sustained by the Allies, .... 339 

The casualties resulting from the battle, .... 340 

Trophies taken by the Russians, .... 340 

Treatment of the prisoners taken by the enemy, . . . 341 

III. 

With whom the victory ? . . . . .341 



The effect of the battle upon the self-confidence of the Russians, . 342 
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER. 

LORD CARDIGAN, . . .345 

Lord Cardigan's theory as to the duty of a cavalry officer placed in 



his circumstances, ...... 348 

His statements and explanations, ..... 350 

His written explanations of the course he took in retiring, . . 350 

Counter statements, . . . . . . 351 

The definite question thus raised, . . . . .352 

The question not yet ripe for decision, .... 353 



329 
330 
332 
333 



I 







CONTENTS. 


xvii 






APPTCNDTX" 

ill X J.J i-> -LJ ll\ . 










PAGE 


JNo. 


T 

1." 


— Narrative by l)r Ramsay Brush, oi the Scots Greys, re- 








specting the part taken by Colonel Darby Griffith, . 


oO/ 


JNO. 


TT 
11.- 


— Explanatory Statements laid before Mr Kinglake by 








Lord Lucan, ...... 


QKCi 


IN 0. 


TTT 
111.- 


— Statement laid before Mr Kinglake by Lord Cardigan, . 




IN 0. 


TV 
XV. 


— O IctLcllicIl U ldlU. UclUIU 1YJ.I JLVlllgltUvc Uj J-iUXU. VjcLUllQallj • 


ovo 


IN 0. 


v .- 


— Record of Military Services of General "W. F. Beatson, . 


OOO 


"NTn 

XN U. 


VT 


— Vjrcllclal OLaiicbU a Olaii, .<>... 


O t At 


No. 


VII.- 


— The Strength of the body of Russian Cavalry under 








General Ryjoff which engaged General Scarlett's Bri- 








gade, 


373 


No. VIII.- 


—Papers relating to the Recall of Lord Lucan, 


374 


No. 


IX.- 


—The Nature of the Litigation in the Suit of the Earl of 








Cardigan v. Lieutenant-Colonel Calthorpe, 


384 






ILLUSTEATIONS TO VOLUME IV. 








BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 





Plate I. General Plan — Advance of the Russian Cavalry, to face page 78 

,, II. Order of march of the six squadrons, sent 
General Scarlett when approach of Russian 
Cavalry was observed, 

,, III. The Heavy Cavalry Charge, 

,, IV. Facsimile of Lord Cardigan's Plan, 

,, V. The Light Cavalry Charge, 

„ VI. The Light Cavalry Attack, 
. ,, VII. De Todleben's Plan of the Rout of the Russian 
Cavalry, ..... 

,, VIII. The 8th Hussars charging three squadrons of 
Jeropkine's Lancers, .... 

,, IX. 4th Light Dragoons and 11th Lancers retreat- 
ing across front of Jeropkine's Lancers, 



106 
164 
208 
266 



278 
290 

302 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAPTER I. 



Before entering upon the narrative of a battle in CHAP. 

which the English division of horse took a principal . J — • 

part, it seems right to speak of the selections that ^seiect^ 
were made by our governing authorities when they in ggene- 

J & & J rals of 

undertook to name the general officers who were to ™™hy 

° for a cam- 

be entrusted with cavalry commands in the army de- P ai g n - 

spatched to the East. If a minister were unhappily 

forced to cast his eyes over a crowd of officers who 

had none of them rendered war service, and to try to 

draw out from among them the three or four gifted 

men who could best be entrusted to act in the field as 

generals of cavalry, it would be senseless to blame 

him for failing in so hard a task ; but when it The test 

so happens that within recent years the State has service in 

carried on war, there surely is one test of fitness 

which has such paramount value, that the neglect to 

apply it can hardly be deserving of pardon, or even, 

we would say, of indulgence : Has the officer whose 

name is submitted done recent service in the field? 

VOL. IV. A 



2 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Has his service been brilliant ? Has lie shown his 
. — ; — . prowess in action as a cavalry officer \ Has he in any 
rank, however humble, taken part in cavalry fights ? 
Is he of the age for a cavalry man \ Is he either under 
thirty-five, or else a man so fresh come from the per- 
formance of cavalry feats that the question of age may 
be waived ? If the minister finds that all these ques- 
tions must be answered in the negative by a portion 
of the candidates, whilst others can answer affirma- 
tively, it would surely appear to follow that he has 
already effected some progress towards a selection of 
the right names, because he can thenceforth confine 
his investigation to the merits of those officers who 
have served in the field, and eliminate those who 
Great ad- have not. To our own countrymen, more especially, 
enjoyed the principle might be expected to recommend itself, 
land in because it so happened that, notwithstanding the 
!pect re long duration of the peace which had been exist- 
Herbrii- ing between the great Powers of Europe, England 

liant list 

of war- had a superb list of cavalry officers in the early 

service 

officers. prime of life who had done brilliant service in the 
field. 

Choice Well, elimination proceeded — a choice was made ; 
^GoT- but it was with an actually inverting effect that these 
emment. p era ^ ons ^ 00 ^ place. Incredible as it may seem, it 
is nevertheless true that, in nominating general officers 
for cavalry commands in the East, the names of the 
men who had done service in the field were all set 
aside, and that from the peace-service residue exclu- 
sively the appointments in question were made. 
The officer entrusted with the charge of our cavalry 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



3 



division was Lord Lucan. To his want of experience CHAP, 
in the field there was added the drawback of age ; for < — ^ — • 
he had attained to a period of life at which no man ^in. 
altogether unused to war service could be expected to 
burst into fame as a successful cavalry general ; but 
by nature Lord Lucan was gifted with some at least 
of the qualities essential for high command ; and his 
fifty-four years, after all, however surely they may 
have extinguished the happy impulsiveness which is 
needed for a wielder of the cavalry arm, can hardly 
be said to have impaired his efficiency in the general 
business of a commander. He enjoyed perfect health; 
he saw like a hawk ; and he retained such extraor- 
dinary activity of both body and mind, that perhaps 
the mention of his actual age makes it really more 
difficult than it might otherwise be to convey an 
idea of the tall, lithe, slender, and young-looking 
officer, pursuing his task of commander with a 
kind of fierce, tearing energy, and expressing by a 
movement of feature somewhat rare amongst Eng- 
lishmen the intensity with which his mind worked. 
At every fresh access of strenuousness, and espe- 
cially at the moments preceding strenuous speech, his 
face all at once used to light up with a glittering, 
panther-like aspect, resulting from the sudden fire 
of the eye, and the sudden disclosure of the teeth, 
white, even, and clenched. 

At an early period of his life, and whilst still almost 
a boy, he had the honour to be encouraged in his 
career by the Duke of Wellington, and even to receive 
words of counsel and guidance from the lips of the 



4 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, great captain. In later years, he had had the spirit 
• — ^ — ' and enterprise to join the Eussian army whilst engaged 
in military operations, thus giving himself the advan- 
tage of seeing a campaign;"* and I cannot but believe 
that the time thus spent was more conducing to warlike 
efficiency than many a diligent year employed in peace 
service at home. Independently of the general advan- 
tage derived from a glimpse of reality, Lord Lucan 
gathered from his experience of that campaign on the 
Danube some knowledge of a more special kind in 
regard to Eussian troops ; and there is reason for in- 
ferring that his mode of handling the English cavalry 
in the Crimea was in some measure influenced by the 
impressions of his earlier days. A quarter of a cen- 
tury before, he had come back from the Danube cam- 
paign with a low opinion of the Eussian cavalry, but 
with a high respect for the infantry — more especially, 
it seems, for the infantry when gathered in heavy 
column ; and he not only carried those opinions with 
him to the Crimea, but continued, when there, to hold 
them unchanged, and even, perhaps — though uncon- 
sciously — to make them the basis of his resolves. 

Lord Lucan's intellectual abilities were of a very 
high order, and combined as they were with the ex- 
traordinary energy of which I have spoken, they 
might seem to constitute power. Experience, too, had 
shown that he could apply these qualities effectively 
to at least one grade of military duty, for at the time 

* In the war of 1828-9 against the Sultan, Lord Lucan was attached 
to the Staff of Prince Woronzoff ; and I have heard that he was gra- 
ciously chided by the Emperor Nicholas for too freely exposing his life. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



5 



when he exercised a Lieutenant-Colonel's command CHAP, 
his regiment was in excellent order. - — ^ — - 

No military duties in peace-time could suffice to 
absorb such energies as those which Lord Lucan pos- 
sessed; and during a period of many years imme- 
diately preceding the Eussian war, he had engaged 
himself in the conduct of large agricultural opera- 
tions, carried on upon his own estates both in Eng- 
land and Ireland. With him, the improvement and 
culture of land had not been a mere quiet resource 
for dawdling away the slow hours, but a serious and 
engrossing business, eliciting sustained energy. In 
executing his designs for the improvement of his Irish 
estates, he pressed on, it appears, with a great strength 
of purpose, which overthrew all interposed obstacles ; 
and that ruthlessness perhaps was a circumstance 
which might be numbered amongst the reasons for 
giving him a command, because the innovating force 
of will which he evidenced was a quality which had 
at the time a special and peculiar value. At the 
commencement of operations in the field, it is diffi- 
cult for any man who is not of an almost violent 
nature to prepare troops long used to peace service for 
the exigencies of actual war, by tearing them out of 
the grooves in which they have long been moving. Of 
course, the grave task of choosing our cavalry generals 
was converted, as it were, into guess-work by the 
determination to take them exclusively from the list 
of those officers who had never served their country 
in the field ; but apart from that grave objection, and 
the objection founded on age, Lord Lucan was an 



6 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, officer from whom much might be reasonably hoped, 
• — h — - if the soundness of his judgment could be inferred 
from the general force of his intellect, and if also it 
could be taken for granted that he would prove will- 
ing and able, after having long had his own way, to 
accept the yoke of military subordination in the field, 
and to bear it with loyalty and temper. 

Lord Lucan had one quality which is of great worth 
to a commander, though likely to be more serviceable 
to a commander-in-chief than to one filling a subordi- 
nate post. He had decision, and decision apparently 
so complete that his mind never hankered after the re- 
jected alternative. His convictions once formed were 
so strong, and his impressions of facts or supposed 
facts so intensely vivid, that he was capable of being 
positive to a degree rarely equalled. When he deter- 
mined that he was right and others wrong, he did 
not fail also to determine that the right and the wrong 
were right and wrong with a vengeance. In sum- 
ming up before the House of Lords an argument 
attempting the refutation of a despatch sent home by 
Lord Eaglan, he spoke in a way which was curiously 
characteristic. He did not dilute his assurances with 
the language of moderation. 'My Lords/ he said, 
' I believe I have now answered every charge con- 
' tained in Lord Kaglan's letter. I pledged myself to 
' refute every accusation ; I said that I would not 
' leave a word unanswered. I believe I have fully 
' fulfilled the undertaking I gave — have not left two 
6 words together, but have torn the letter to rags 
' and tatters/ Coming from Lord Lucan, this lan- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



guage was no vulgar brazenry : it represented the CHAP, 
irrepressible strength of his real though mistaken « — h — - 
conviction. 

From the qualities observed in this general officer 
at the time of his appointment, it might have been 
difficult perhaps for a minister to infer the peculiar 
tendency which developed itself in the field; but 
what happened was — that, partly from the exceeding 
vigour of his intellect, partly from a naturally combat- 
ive, antagonistic temper, and partly, perhaps, from the 
circumstance of his having been long accustomed to 
rural and provincial sway, Lord Lucan in the Crimea 
disclosed a habit of mind which was calculated to en- 
danger his efficiency as a subordinate commander. He 
suffered himself to become an inveterate critic — an in- 
veterate critic of the orders he received from Headquar- 
ters ; and since it happened that his criticism almost 
always ended in his coming to a strong disapproval of 
his chiefs directions, he of course lost that comfort of 
mind which is enjoyed by an officer who takes it for 
granted that his chief must be right, and had to be 
constantly executing orders with the full persuasion 
that they were wrongly conceived. Plainly, that was 
a state of mind which might grievously impair a man's 
powers of action in the field, not only by chilling him 
with the wretched sensation of disapproving what he 
had to do, but also by confusing him in his endeav- 
ours to put right interpretations upon the orders he 
received. 

It was never from dulness or sloth, but rather 
through a misaiming cleverness, that Lord Lucan used 



8 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, to fall into error. With a mind almost always ap- 
- — ; — ' parently in a confident and positive state, he brought 
it to bear in a way which so often proved infelicitous, 
that his command in the Crimea was made on the 
whole to appear like that of a wrong-headed man ; 
but I imagine that this result was in no small meas- 
ure produced by the circumstance of his being almost 
always in an attitude of oppugDancy ; and there is 
room for believing that under other conditions, and 
especially if detached, and acting for the time inde- 
pendently, he might have evinced a much higher 
capacity for the business of war than he found means 
to show in the Crimea. There, at all events, he was 
not at all happily circumstanced ; for besides being , 
wholly unarmed with the authority which is conferred 
by former services in the field, he had so yielded to his 
unfortunate habit of adverse criticism as to be more 
often fretted than animated by the orders which came 
down from Headquarters ; and, on the other hand, he 
had under him a general officer commanding one of 
his brigades, who was rather a busy antagonist than a 
zealous and devoted lieutenant. 

It must be remembered, moreover, that the control 
of a large body of cavalry in action carries with it 
one peculiar source of embarrassment. If the general 
commanding leads a charge in person (as Murat was 
accustomed to do), he loses, of course, for a time his 
power of personally directing the troops not included 
in his first line, and so abdicates during the interval 
one of his principal functions as a general. If, on the 
other hand, he clings to his power as a general, and 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



9 



declines to narrow his authority during several criti- CHAP, 
cal minutes by taking the part of a leader, he must be 1 — ^— - 
content to forego a large share of the glory which at- 
taches to cavalry achievements. He may deserve and 
attain the high credit of seizing the happiest moments 
for successively launching his squadrons ; but in com- • 
bats of horse, the task of actually leading an attack is 
plainly so momentous a business that it would be 
difficult for any man coming new to field service to 
build up any lofty repute as a general of cavalry, by 
ordering other people to charge. 

Therefore, for general as well as for special reasons, 
Lord Lucan's command was one of an embarrassing 
kind ; but despite the inherent difficulties of his posi- 
tion — despite all the hindrances created by himself, and 
the hindrances created by others — he was a diligent, 
indefatigable commander, — always in health, always at 
his post, always toiling to the best of his ability, and 
maintaining a high, undaunted, and even buoyant 
spirit, under trials the most depressing. He expended 
a prodigious industry upon his duties. It may be 
that he was not perfectly consequent, or that his 
measures were wrong or ill-timed, or, again, that he 
was unduly thwarted ; for certainly the result seems 
to have been that, in proportion to the energy exerted, 
his mind left no great trace of its action; but if a 
man's power of commanding could be safely inferred 
from mere words, the collection which has been made 
of Lord Lucan's divisional orders would be a strik- 
ing example of vigour applied to the management of 
cavalry in a time of the heaviest trials. Disliking ■ 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



P. apparently every sacrifice, however temporary, of the 
controlling power, he did not take upon himself to 
lead in person any cavalry charge ; and therefore the 
degree in which he may have been qualified for that 
very peculiar kind of duty must of course be a sub- 
ject of conjecture rather than proof; but his com- 
posure under heavy fire was so perfect that, even in 
an army where prowess evinced in that way was ex- 
ceedingly general, it did not escape observation. ' Yes, 
' damn him, he's brave/ was the comment pronounced 
on Lord Lucan by one of his most steady haters. 

This is not the place for giving the general tenor 
of Lord Lucan's services as commander of our cavalry 
in the Crimea •* but I have sought to prepare for my 
account of the action in the plain of Balaclava, by 
conveying beforehand some impression of the officer 
who there commanded our cavalry. Some such 
glance was the more to be desired because Lord 
Lucan's abilities were evidently of a higher order 
than those he found means to disclose by the part he 
took in the battle. 

It should be understood that Lord Lucan did not 
thrust himself into the command of our division of 
horse. All he had asked for was to have charge of a 
single infantry brigade. 

The English division of horse numbered two bri- 
gades, one of which comprised the Light Cavalry, the 
other our Heavy Dragoons. The Light Brigade, as 
we know, was commanded by the Earl of Cardigan. 

* The place for that will be the chapter in which I deal with the 
period of Lord Lucan' s recall. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



11 



Lord Cardigan, when appointed to this command, 
was about fifty-seven years old, and had never seen 
war service. From his early days he had eagerly ^ r a ^ 1 Car " 
longed for the profession of arms, and although pre- 
vented by his father's objections from entering the 
army at the usual period of life, he afterwards — 
that is, at about twenty-seven years of age — was 
made a cornet in a cavalry regiment. He pursued 
his profession with diligence, absenting himself much 
from the House of Commons (of which he was at that 
time a member) for the purpose of doing orderly 
duty as a subaltern in the 8 th Hussars. Aided partly 
by fortune, but partly by the favour of the Duke of 
York and the . operation of the purchase system, he 
rose very quickly in the service, and at the end of 
about seven years from the period of his entering the 
army, he was a lieutenant-colonel. 

He had a passionate love for the service — a fair 
knowledge, it is believed, of so much cavalry business 
as is taught by practice in England — a strong sense 
of military duty — a burning desire for the fame 
which awaits heroic actions — and, finally, the gift of 
high courage. Lord Cardigan's valour was not at all 
of the wild, heedless kind, but the result of strong 
determination. Even from his way of riding to hounds, 
it was visible, they say, that the boldness he evinced 
was that of a resolute man with a set purpose, and 
not a dare-devil impulse. He bore himself firmly in 
both the duels he fought; and upon the occasion 
which opposed him to an officer against whom he was 
bitterly angered, he shot his foe through the body/''" 

* Without, I think, killing him. 



12 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. His mind, although singularly barren, and wanting 
< — ^ — ' in dimensions, was not without force ; and he had 
the valuable quality of persistency. He had been so 
constituted by nature, or so formed by the watchful 
care which is sometimes bestowed upon an only son, 
as to have a habit of attending to the desires and the 
interests of self with a curious exactitude. The tend- 
ency, of course, was one which he shared with nearly 
all living creatures; and it was only from the extraor- 
dinary proportions in which the attribute existed, and 
from the absence of any attempt to mask the propen- 
sity, that it formed a distinctive peculiarity. When 
engaged in the task of self-assertion or self-advocacy, 
he adhered to his subject with the most curious rigour, 
never going the least bit astray from it, and separat- 
ing from it all that concerned the rest of creation as 
matter altogether irrelevant and uninteresting. Others 
before him may have secretly concentrated upon self 
an equal amount of attention ; but in Lord Cardigan 
there was such an entire absence of guile, that ex- 
actly as he was so he showed himself to the world. 
Of all false pretences contrived for the purpose of 
feigning an interest in others he was as innocent as 
a horse. Amongst his good qualities was love of 
order ; but this with him was in such morbid excess, 
that it constituted a really dangerous foible, involv- 
ing him from time to time in mischief. One of his 
quarrels was founded upon the colour of a bottle; 
another upon the size of a tea-cup. In each case the 
grievance was want of uniformity. To his formulated 
mind the distinction between lawful and right was 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



13 



imperceptible. A thousand times over it might be CHAP, 
suggested to him that he ought riot to have been sleep- - — ^ — • 
ing on board his yacht — a yacht with a French cook 
on board — when not only all the officers and men 
under him, but also his divisional chief, were cheer- 
fully bearing the hardships and privations of camp 
life ; but a thousand times over he would answer 
that he indulged himself thus with the permission of 
Lord Eaglan ; and the lawfulness of the practice 
being thus established, he never seemed to understand 
that there could remain any question of propriety, or 
taste, or right feeling. 

With attributes of this kind, he was plainly more 
fitted to obey than to command. Having no personal 
ascendancy, and no habitual consideration for the 
feelings of others, he was not, of course, at all quali- 
fied to exert easy rule over English gentlemen, and 
his idea of the way to command was to keep on com- 
manding. There surely was cruelty in the idea of 
placing human beings under the military control of 
an officer at once so arbitrary and so narrow; but the 
notion of such a man having been able to purchase for 
himself a right to hold Englishmen in military sub- 
jection is, to my mind, revolting. Lord Cardigan 
incurred a series of quarrels, and was removed from 
the command of his regiment; but afterwards, by 
the special desire of the Duke of Wellington, he was 
restored to active service. 

There can hardly have been any well-founded 
expectation that Lord Cardigan would be able to go 
through a campaign without engaging in quarrels; 



14 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, and never, surely, by action or speech, did he convince 
> — h — - the dispensers of military authority that he was a 
man who would be competent to meet the emergen- 
cies of war with the resources of a fruitful mind. 
I imagine that the first active Bishop or Doctor of 
Divinity whom the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse 
Guards might chance to have met on horseback would 
probably have been much more competent than Lord 
Cardigan (whose mind worked always in grooves) to 
discover and seize the right moment for undertaking 
a cavalry charge. Yet without the attributes of a 
commander, a man may be a resolute, faithful, heroic 
soldier ; and that surely is the kind of glory — it is 
glory of no mean kind — which can best be claimed 
for Lord Cardigan. In despite of all the faults which 
he had manifested to the world when appointed to the 
command of the Light Brigade, there still remained 
good grounds for trusting that, as long as he should 
be acting in the performance of what he might 
clearly understand to be his duty, he would perform 
it with precision, with valour, and, if need be, with 
unsparing devotioD. 
LordLu- If between Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan there 
Lord Car- could be discovered any points of resemblance, these 
g arded re were not of such a kind as to be conducive to har- 
conjomt- mon y t They were, both of them, contentious ; and 
whether from natural gifts, or from long habits of 
disputation, they had both of them powers of a 
kind which are commonly developed in lawyers, 
though not certainly in lawyers of the same quality. 
Lord Lucan was the able, the cogent, the strenuous, 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



15 



the daring advocate, whose opponents (especially if CHAP, 
they happened to be in the right) were to be not i — - 
merely answered but crushed. Lord Cardigan, in his 
forensic aspect, was of the species which repeats a 
hundred times over in the same words the same ver- 
sion of the same facts, persistently ignores the whole 
strength of the adversary's argument, and which also 
relies a good deal upon what in the courts are called 
'points' and Objections.' Yet it would seem that 
he must have been capable of attaining to a higher 
level ; for upon one occasion, when undertaking to 
defend himself in the House of Commons, he made 
what the House regarded as a very good speech. 
Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan were both of them 
men possessed with exceeding self-confidence, but a 
self-confidence resulting from very different springs 
of thought. Lord Lucan's trustfulness in himself 
was based upon the consciousness of great ability, 
and upon that rare vividness of impression as well 
as that strength of conviction of which we were just 
now speaking. He was confident because he was 
positive. On the other hand, Lord Cardigan's as- 
surance was not, I think, founded upon any quality 
which could be rightly called self-conceit, but rather 
upon the corollary which he drew from the fact of 
his having a given command. He was so extrava- 
gantly military in his notions, so orderly, so straight- 
minded, so given to narrow and literal interpreta- 
tions, that from the mere fact of his having been en- 
trusted with the charge of a brigade, he inferred 
his perfect fitness for the task. By the act of ap- 



16 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, pointing him his Sovereign had declared him fit, and 
^— J — - he took the Queen at her word. When we see him, 
by-and-by, side by side with a cavalry officer of war- 
like experience, at a critical moment, we shall learn 
to how great an absurdity a man may be brought 
by this army-list process of reasoning. So far did 
Lord Cardigan carry the inference, that once, I see — 
even in writing — when maintaining his view as to 
the extent of undisturbed authority which should be 
possessed by the commander of a brigade, he made 
bold to bracket himself, as it were, for the pur- 
pose of the discussion, with no less a man than 
Sir Colin Campbell, basing one of his arguments 
upon the tacit assumption, that because Sir Colin 
and he both commanded brigades, they were both 
of them, therefore, entitled to the same degree of 
latitude. 

It was hardly to be expected with confidence that 
officers appointed to high cavalry commands without 
having earned them by serving their country in the 
field would all at once show themselves able to put 
sound constructions upon the orders which were to 
guide them in the presence of the enemy ; and the 
personal qualities of Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan 
were not of such a kind as to supply in this point the 
absence of warlike experience. With Lord Lucan 
the danger was, that his fertile and vigorous mind 
might bring him into some elaborate and subversive 
process of reasoning. If, for instance, we should hear 
him informed that he is to be supported by infantry, 
we must be prepared to find him convinced that the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



17 



infantry is to be supported by him. On the other CHAP, 
hand, Lord Cardigan's endeavours at construing or- — J- — • 
ders were sure to be characterised by an exceeding 
rigidity, which might be preposterous in one instance, 
in another superb. If ordered to hold a position, he 
might think himself planted as fast as a sentry at the 
gate of a palace. If ordered to advance down a valley 
without being told where to halt, he might proudly 
abstain from supplying the omission, and lead his 
brigade to destruction. 

Lord Lucan was the brother-in-law of Lord Cardi- 
gan ; but so little beloved by him that in the eyes 
of cynical London, an arrangement for coupling the 
one man to the other seemed almost a fell stroke 
of humour. It might have been thought that, in a 
free country, the notion of carrying official perverse- 
ness to any such extreme length as this must have 
been nipped in the bud. It was not so. If England 
was free, she was also very patient of evil institutions, 
as well as of official misfeasance. She trusted too 
much to the fitful anger of Parliament, and the chances 
of remonstrance in print. 

In justice to Lord Cardigan — because tending to 
account for, and in some measure palliate, the act 
which will be presently mentioned — it should be 
stated that, some short time before the embarkation, 
he had had to endure a bitter disappointment, under 
which he continued to smart during the first two 
weeks of the invasion. Lord Lucan was to have 
been left in Bulgaria, and, under that arrangement, 
Lord Cardigan in the Crimea would have been com- 

VOL. IV. B 



18 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, mander of our cavalry during several momentous 
- — r — - days, without being liable to any interference except 
from Lord Eaglan himself ; but Lord Lucan success- 
fully insisted upon his claim to be present with the 
portion of the division which was likely to come first 
into the presence of the enemy ; and accordingly Lord 
Cardigan, though commanding the Light Brigade, 
had over him his divisional general, and was therefore 
in a measure annulled. 
Lord Car- Lord Cardigan was not a man who would have 

digan's 

attitude of consciously suffered himself to become at all insubor- 
^mlT dinate : but, whilst writhinsf under the torture inflicted 

Lord 

Lucan. by the annulling presence of his divisional general, he 
brought himself to imagine that the custom of the 
service set something like bounds to the overruling 
authority which should be exercised by a divisional 
general over his brigadier, and that in some matters 
at least — as, for instance, in the arrangements of his 
camp — the brigadier had a right to expect that he 
would be left to his own discretion. 

Accordingly, and at a period of the campaign when 
it mio'ht be imagined that the eternal claims of self 
would, for a time, be superseded by the warlike ardour 
of a cavalry leader, Lord Cardigan applied his mind 
to the object of protecting himself from the inter- 
Lord Car- ference of his commanding officer. He drew up in 

digan's .. . 

complaint writing a lengthy string 01 complaints on this subject, 

wn g. submitted them to Lord Eaglan. 

Lord Rag- Lord Kaplan judged it his duty to answer this 

lan's se- . _ a 

verean- appeal with some severity. In a paper which was 
addressed, it seems, to Lord Cardigan, but meant to 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



19 



be communicated also to Lord Lucan, the Commander CHAP, 
of the forces thus wrote : — - — ^ — > 

' Balaclava, Sept. 28, 1854. 

e I have perused this correspondence with the deep- 
' est regret, and I am bound to express my con- 
' viction that the Earl of Cardigan would have done 
' better if he had abstained from making the repre- 
' sentation which he has thought fit to submit to 
' my decision. 

' I consider him wrong in every one of the instances 
' cited. A general of division may interfere little or 
6 much with the duties of a general of brigade, as he 
' may think proper or see fit. His judgments may be 
' right or wrong, but the general of brigade should 
' bear this in mind, that the lieutenant-general is the 
' senior officer, and that all his orders and sugges- 
' tions claim obedience and attention.' 

Lord Kaglan, however, determined to try whether Lord Rag- 
it were possible that words of entreaty from himself, peal to the 
addressed alike to Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, fngf of 1 " 
might either allay the animosity existing between Lucan and 
them, or render it less embarrassing to the public d^an. ^ 
service ; and accordingly, in the same paper, he ad- 
dressed to both these Generals the following appeal : 
' The Earl of Lucan and the Earl of Cardigan are 
1 nearly connected. They are both gentlemen of high 
' honour and of elevated position in the country, in- 
' dependently of their military rank. They must per- 
' mit me, as the Commander of the Forces, and, I may 
' say, the friend of both, earnestly to recommend to 



20 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. ' them to communicate frankly with each other, and 
< — J- — - ' to come to such an understanding as that there 
6 should be no suspicion of the contempt of authority 
e on the one side, and no apprehension of undue inter- 
' ference on the other.' (Signed) ' Eaglan/ 

It must not be supposed, however, that the re- 
lations between these two officers involved them in 
unseemly personal altercations. Lord Lucan with 
great wisdom and tact took care that the more un- 
welcome communications which he from time to time 
made to his brigadier should be either in writing, or 
else conveyed by the mouth of another ; and Lord 
Cardigan on the other hand had a sense of propriety 
in such matters, and was not without power of self- 
restraint. 

inquiry But now, why did it happen that England, having 

as to the ... ° & 

causes under her eyes a brilliant list of cavalry officers from 
dered it whom she might make her choice, determined to ex- 
fo?the e elude all those who had served in the field, and to 
mentTo place in the respective commands of which we have 
did asit been speaking two peers between fifty and sixty 
years old who had neither of them rendered war- 
service ? One answer is this : There was a divided 
responsibility. We heard what happened to London 
when the War Office and the Horse Guards — the 
clerk and the counter-clerk — differed ; but this selec- 
tion of cavalry officers was the result of agreement, 
or rather, one may say, of a process which goes by 
the name of 'compounding/ From ancient treaties 
of peace between the two sides of Whitehall it re- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



21 



suited that the Commander-in-Chief at the Horse CHAP. 
Guards was the authority for advising the appoint- : — ✓ — ' 
ment and taking the Queen's pleasure upon it ; but 
that the authorities responsible to Parliament, or, 
in other words, the Ministry, might take upon them- 
selves to interpose ; and that if they should do so, 
and do so persistently, then, painful as the surren- 
der would be, their objection should be allowed to 
prevail. 

From this division of power there followed, of course, 
a corresponding alleviation of responsibility. Lord 
Hardinge could say that the proposed nominations had 
been brought to the cognisance of the Ministry, with- 
out causing them to interpose their authority as a 
positive bar to the proceeding. The Ministry, on 
the other hand, could declare — as, indeed, the Duke 
of Newcastle very constantly did — that they strongly 
disapproved the appointments, and never would have 
made them if they had the full power in their hands ; 
but that, still, they did not feel it absolutely incum- 
bent upon them to take the somewhat strong measure 
of interposing. 

In the present condition of our State arrangements, 
one of the best and most graceful uses of an aris- 
tocracy is to supply the country in time of war with 
commanders who have attained to distinction in pre- 
sence of the enemy, and yet are sufficiently youthful. 
For a nation to build its hopes upon so narrow a basis, 
instead of fairly searching out from among the whole 
community those men who may seem the best quali- 
fied to lead its forces, this, no doubt, must be looked 



22 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, upon as a rude, quaint practice, which is only saved 

; from being preposterous by the fact that no more 

rational method has hitherto found acceptance; but 
in the mean time, the practice, as thus understood, 
has its value. The adventitious circumstances com- 
bine with personal merit, and lift a man into com- 
mand at the age best adapted for the purpose ; so 
that the qualities of a Wellesley, for instance, may 
come to be recognised at thirty instead of at sixty — a 
difference material to the individual, but unspeakably 
important to the country; and in that way (until a bet- 
ter method can be discovered) the legitimate ambition 
of powerful or wealthy families may subserve the true 
interests of the State. If Lord Lucan and Lord Car- 
digan had been two nobles of the age of some thirty- 
three yeers, who had fought side by side on the banks 
of the Sutlej, who had inspired their commanders 
with a high idea of their warlike qualities, and who, 
by aid of these circumstances combining with their 
family pretensions, had attained to such military rank 
and distinction as to be recognised, and deserving 
candidates for high commands, then, indeed, a country 
which had not yet hit upon any better mode of attain- 
ing the object would have had reason to be grateful 
for the existence of a system which supplied and raised 
into eminence, at the right time of life, men capable 
of wielding authority in the field. Far from resting 
upon any such basis, these appointments deprived the 
country of the inestimable advantage of seeing her 
squadrons entrusted to men in the prime of cavalry 
life who had gloriously served in the field, and com- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



23 



mitted a superbly great stake to two peers of the ages CHAP, 
of fifty-four, and fifty-seven, who, so far as concerns - — ^ — > 
that teaching which is imparted by responsible war- 
services, were now to begin their education, and begin 
it in the enemy's presence. 

However, these two general officers were both of 
them brave men, and in that, at all events, there was 
a basis for hoping that, in spite of any misfortunes re- 
sulting from the appointments in question, the honour 
of the service would be sustained. It may be that, in 
professing to judge of the seed which was sown in the 
spring, one is governed too much by observing the 
harvest that was reaped in the autumn ; but certainly 
this double selection of generals does seem as though 
it were fitted — and that without much help from for- 
tune — to involve the English Light Cavalry in some 
ruinous, yet brilliant disaster. 

There is a circumstance which tends in some meas- 
ure to account for dereliction of duty on the part of 
those who were preparing our army for foreign service. 
Men who might be supposed the most competent to 
form an opinion, were persuaded that the force would 
be used as a support to negotiations, and not for actual 
warfare."" 

The officer appointed to the command of the General 
Heavy Dragoons was Brigadier- General the Honour- 
able James Scarlett. He was fifty-five years of age, 

* I do not include the Duke of Newcastle amongst those who enter- 
tained the impression, but certainly the communications made to Lord 
Eaglan — communications extending down to the eve of his departure 
for Paris — compelled him almost to believe that the period of foreign 
service would be extremely brief. 



24 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, and he too, like Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan, had 

. — h » never done service in the field; but besides those 

soldierly qualities of which we shall be able to judge 
when we see him engaging the enemy, he was gifted 
with two quiet attributes, which enabled him to 
appreciate the deficiency, and do all that man could 
to supply it. 

He had modesty as well as good sense ; and know- 
ing that experience, valuable in almost all undertak- 
ings, is especially valuable in the great business of 
war, he did not for a moment assume that, by the 
magic virtue of his mere appointment to a command, 
he became all at once invested with the knowledge or 
the practical skill which men acquire in the field ; and 
he therefore determined, if he could, to have men 
at his side who knew of their own knowledge what 
fighting was, and had even won high distinction. 

The officer whom Scarlett chose as his aide -de- 
camp, was Lieutenant Alexander Elliot. Before the 
period of his entering the Koyal Army Elliot had 
served five years in India. He was in the Gwalior 
campaign, and at the battle of Punniar commanded 
a troop of the 8th Bengal Light Cavalry. With the 
same regiment he went through the whole of the 
eventful and momentous struggle which we call the 
first Sutlej campaign. He commanded a squadron 
at the great battle of Ferozeshah ; and at a time 
when the 6 2d had been driven back and almost 
annihilated, he executed a desperate charge, and with 
his standard-bearer and five troopers penetrated into 
the Sikh entrenchments. In recognition of his bril- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



25 



liant cavalry service in that war, Lord Hardinge CHAP, 
appointed him to a command in his body-guard, and < — ^ — ' 
made him honorary aide-de-camp. Being afterwards 
constrained to leave India by the state of his health, 
he entered the Eoyal Army, and it was owing to this 
necessitated change that he bore no higher rank than 
that of lieutenant. With all the special knowledge 
and instincts of a brilliant cavalry officer, he had 
qualifications of a more general kind ; and if there had 
been at the time of the invasion a minister so strong 
and so resolute as to be able to do the thing which is 
right, a man such as Elliot would have been eagerly 
laid hold of and entrusted with high cavalry command. 

But this was not all that Scarlett was able to do 
towards arming himself with the experience of men 
who had done good service in war. Colonel Beatson 
had fought under Evans in Spain, and had afterwards 
risen to high distinction in India. Being for the time 
in Europe, and yielding to the warlike impulses of his 
nature, he had laid aside those considerations of mili- 
tary rank which might have governed a lower order 
of mind, and consented to be attached to General 
Scarlett's Staff as his extra aide-de-camp. Lord Lu- 
can, with that unhappy perversity which was so con- 
stantly marring his cleverness, opposed himself to 
this last arrangement of Scarlett's, and declared, it 
seems, that Colonel Beatson must not be considered 
as having any recognised position in the army. 

I have said that if General Scarlett enjoyed the 
immense advantage of having two such aides-de-camp 
as these, he owed the happy idea of thus strengthen- 



26 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, ing himself to his own wisdom and modesty ; but it 
. — ^ — ' is worth while to say that that last quality of his 
had a tendency to withdraw our brigade of Heavy 
Dragoons from its due share of public attention. 
Concurring with other known causes, General Scar- 
lett's quiet unobtrusiveness did much to prevent his 
fellow-countrymen from acquainting themselves so 
fully as they might otherwise have been eager to do 
with the fight between his brigade and the main 
body of the Russian cavalry. 

On the day of the battle of Balaclava it was not 
the destiny of General Scarlett to have to act under 
any great complexity of circumstances, nor to give 
rise to any kind of public controversy, and it will 
therefore be easy to see and to understand him in 
action without having a preliminary knowledge of the 
man ; but in truth his achievement corresponded so 
closely with the noble and heroic simplicity of his 
character, that the account of what he did will not 
fail to carry along with it a true indication of his 
quality. We shall see him lead his great charge. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



27 



CHAPTEK II. 



The strength and compactness of the position taken CHAP, 
up by the Allies on the Chersonese upland was not « — ^ — ' 
at all shared, as we know, by the scanty detachment edpositkm 
of infantry which Lord Kaglan had been able to £4-ces de- 
spare for the defence of Balaclava. Stationed apart fowling 

r r Balaclava. 

in the plain below, this small force was in such local 
relation to the Allied army on the Chersonese as to be 
lying outside, and at the foot of the natural castle 
from which the main body looked down.*" 

Yet Balaclava was the storehouse, the arsenal, the 
port, whence the English drew all their supplies ; and 
such was the anomalous character of the arrangements 
which Lord Eaglan had been forced to adopt, that, 
instead of being safely ensconced in the rear of the 
main Allied camp, the material sources of the Eng- 
lish strength lay inviting the enterprise of Prince 
MentschikofFs field army, and in charge, so to speak, 
of an outpost. 

It, however, seemed feasible to construct a system increasing 
of field-works which would enable the troops left out and boid- 
in the plain below to withstand an attack for such Russians 
* See vol. III. chap. xiii. p. 291, et seq. 



28 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, time as to allow of the needed reinforcements coming 
- — down to their aid from the upland ; and the English 
valley of were quickened in their sense of the importance 
^J cher ' belonging to this part of their task, by the always 
increasing strength and boldness of the Eussian force 
which had begun to show itself in the direction of 
Tchorgoun so early as the 7th of October. 
The Bala- Before hearing of the battle of the 25th of October, 
c_ava pobi . g ^ have an idea of the ground upon which 
the security of Balaclava depended, and the arrange- 
ments which had been made for its defence. 
The town. The string of houses constituting Balaclava ex- 
tended along a narrow ledge between the eastern 
side of the little harbour and the western acclivities 
of Mount Hiblak. Except at the gorge of Kadikoi 
towards the north, and the narrow strait towards 
the south leading crookedly into the Euxine, both the 
town and the harbour were surrounded in all direc- 
tions by steep lofty hills ; and the hills towards the 
west being a continuation of that Chersonese upland 
where the main Allied armies lay camped, were within 
the unquestioned dominion of the invaders. 

Partly from this cause, and partly from their com- 
mand of the sea — including the small but deep 
harbour, which brought ships of the line close up to 
the town — the English, at Balaclava, were secure 
against any attack coming either from the west or 
the south ; and again, towards the east, the ground 
was not only steep and commanding, but otherwise 
favourable for defence. Accordingly, from a part of 
the sea-cliff which is one mile east of Balaclava, and 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



29 



thence north and north-west to the Church of St Elias, 
in the neighbourhood of Kadikoi, a curve could be 
drawn, extending along a distance of between two nneof ner 
and three miles, in which nature had done so much defence - 
for the defence that, by expending upon it a mode- 
rate amount of labour, and arming the works there 
constructed with a few naval guns of position, our 
Engineers were enabled to place all this portion of 
the inner line in a fair state of security, without 
diverting from the duties of the siege any very large 
body of men."' 5 " A few of the guns in position near 
the church were manned, it seems, by the Koyal 
Artillery, but all the rest of them by our Marine 
Artillery ;t and the only bodies of infantry which this 
line of more than two miles absorbed, were the 1200 
marines from our fleet, under the command of Colonel 
Hurdle, with two companies of the 93d Kegiment.J 

Towards the north, the hills opened, and the place 
could be approached by the gorge of Kadikoi ; but 
even there, at intervals there were spurs thrown out 
from the neighbouring acclivities which offered good 
sites for several small field-works, and by taking ad- 
vantage of these, our Engineers completed their inner 

* The number of guns in battery along this inner line of defence 
was, I think, 26. The Engineers were confident in the security of the 
£ inner line,' and at times certainly Sir Colin Campbell shared their 
belief ; but I gather that he was brought into an anxious state of mind 
by the peculiar responsibility which weighed upon him, and his lan- 
guage in regard to the security of the position was not always the same. 

t I now gather that all the guns in position along the ' inner line of 
' defence ' were manned by the Marine Artillery. — Note to 2d Edition. 

t Our Engineers put the length of the line, taken altogether, at 
' about three miles.' — Official Journal, p. 41. 



30 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, line of defence. The troops on which Sir Colin 
,_J^l__, Campbell relied for the defence of the gorge were 
the main body of the 93d Highlanders, with a bat- 
talion of Turks and a battery of field-artillery. 

There was a frigate* in the harbour, and (besides a 
score or two of English soldiers, having duties of some 
kind which brought them to Balaclava on the day of 
the battle) there lay in the town some eighty or a hun- 
dred English soldiers, who, although invalided, were 
not so prostrate as to be unable to handle a musket. 

So great was the confidence which most of our 
people reposed in the strength of this inner line of 
defence, in the quality of all the troops which manned 
it, and in the prowess of the veteran soldier who com- 
manded the garrison, that the safety of the ground thus 
covered cost them little or no uneasiness ; and, as a 
not inexpressive sign of the quiet efficiency with which 
this part of the defence was made good, I may mention 
that an officer holding a very high and responsible com- 
mand, and one, too, which did not at all tend to divert 
him from this part of the Allied position, was long 
able to remain unacquainted with the very existence 

* So called by Sir Colin Campbell, but the ' Wasp ' was in fact a 
corvette ; and with the exception of a gunner and a few men in charge, 
she had no crew on board. The ' Diamond ' was lying also in the har- 
bour, but she neither had guns nor crew on board, and was in charge, 
it seems, of a single ship-keeper. Captain Patison, R.N., commanding 
the ' Simoom,' a troop-ship, was the senior naval officer in the harbour. 
When he became aware that there was likely to be an attack, he ordered 
his first lieutenant, Lieutenant Selby, to collect the working parties, 
and get them on board the ' Wasp,' thereby enabling the corvette, if called 
upon, to deliver fire from her starboard broadside ; and he also directed 
that one watch should follow him ashore, and take part in the land de- 
fence.' — Note to Second Edition. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



31 



of the inner line of defence, and to hear of it for C H A P. 
the first time some ten years after the peace. To him 
in the Crimea this inner line of defence was what 
oxygen is to a peasant — a blessing unperceived and 
unheard of, on which his existence depended. 

The gorge of Kadikoi opens out into a large tract The plain 
of ground which, though marked in some places by ciava. 
strong undulations, by numberless hillocks, and even 
by features deserving the name of * heights/ is yet, 
upon the whole, so much lower, and so much more 
even than the surrounding country, as to be called 
' the plain of Balaclava/ 

This tract of comparatively low ground is the field 
of the engagement, which we are accustomed to call 
the battle of Balaclava, but it lies a mile north of the 
town.* It has an average length of about three miles, 
with a breadth of about two, and is hemmed in on 
almost all sides by ground of from some 300 to 
1000 feet high ; for, on the north of the plain, 
there are the Fedioukine Hills ; on the east, Mount 
Hasfort ; on the south, the Kamara Hills and Mount 
Hiblak ; on the west, the steep buttresses of the 
Chersonese upland. 

The distinctive feature of the basin thus formed 
is a low ridge of ground, which, crossing the so-called 
' plain ? in the direction of its length — or, in other 
terms, from east to west — divides it into two narrow 
valleys. So completely has this range of heights 
bridged over the plain, that it served as a natural 

* See the map ; but a glance at the diagram on the following page 
may aid towards an apprehension of the general features of the field. 




32 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, viaduct, enabling the designer of the Woronzoff road 
- — ^ — ' to carry his trace-line across from the Kamara Hills on 
the east to the Chersonese uplands on the west with- 
out letting it ever descend to the general level of the 




BLACK SEA 



ground which had to be traversed ; and therefore it is 
that the features which constitute this ridge are dis- 
tinguished as the ' Causeway Heights/ 

From the foot of the Chersonese the North Valley 
sloped down in an eastern direction till it reached 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



33 



the embankment of the aqueduct, there crossed, it CHAP, 
appears, by three bridges. A yet farther descent of — ^ — • 
only a few yards down the valley brought a rider to 
the left bank of the river Tchernaya, and to fords 
by which he might cross it. On the other side of the 
river, and at a distance of less than a mile, there 
stood the village of Tchorgoun, where Liprandi, as we 
know, had established his Headquarters, and gathered 
his main strength. This North Valley is ground on 
which the memory of our countrymen has brooded. 
It was the scene of the Light Cavalry charge. 

The South Valley is on the Balaclava side of the 
' Causeway Heights/ At its eastern extremity there 
is a knoll between 500 and 600 feet high, which, being 
joined to the Kamara Hills by a neck of high ground, 
juts out over the valley as a promontory does over 
the sea, and for a feature thus conspicuous men soon 
found a name. They called it ' Canrobert's Hill/ At 
the opposite or western extremity of this valley, the 
road connecting Balaclava with the Chersonese passed 
up by way of the ' Col/ It is with the slope of a hill- 
side descending into this South Valley, and with the 
glory of Scarlett's Dragoons, that England will have 
to associate her memory of the one great fight be- 
tween cavalry and cavalry which took place in the 
course of the war. 

It was of so much moment to secure Balaclava from Concep- 
disaster, that there could not but be a desire to pre- outer line 
vent the enemy from coming within the limits of the ofdefence 
South Valley ; and considering, on the one hand, the 
inconvenience of diverting troops from the siege for 

vol. iv. c 



34 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAR merely defensive purposes, and, on the other, the 

. — ^ > configuration of the ground in the plain of Balaclava, 

men thought that what was wanting in bayonets might 
possibly be eked out with the spade ; and this idea was 
the more readily pursued because it happened that, in 
part from the confidence of the Sultan, and in part 
from the graciousness of the French Commander, Lord 
Kaplan had obtained the services of some 3000 Turkish 
soldiers, who might first be employed in constructing 
the requisite earthworks, and then in manning them. 
Our Engineers saw that by throwing up a slight work 
on Canrobert s Hill, and a chain of little redoubts on 
the bosses or hillocks which mark at short intervals 
the range of the Causeway Heights, there might be 
formed an entrenched position which would enable 
a force of moderate strength to hold the ground 
against one much more numerous ; and it is evident 
that the design would have had a great value if the 
position of Balaclava, when expecting an attack from 
20,000 or 25,000 men, had had a small army of 
10,000 or 12,000 men to defend it. But this was 
not the real exigency ; for, on the one hand, the 
Allies, if they could have time to come down, were 
in no danger at this period of being outnumbered in 
the plain ; and, on the other hand, there was not only 
no army at Balaclava of such strength as to be able 
to defend an entrenched position like that which 
might be formed on the line of the Causeway Heights, 
but actually no army at all, and no force of any kind 
that could be charged to support the men placed in 
the intended works, save only a division of cavalry, 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



35 



with a single troop of horse-artillery. Our Engineers CHAP, 
formed an entrenched position which could only have • — J- — 
strength upon the supposition that several thousands 
of the Allied infantry would have time to come down 
and defend it. Yet unless there should be a more 
than English vigilance in the plain of Balaclava, and 
unless, too, our Division of Cavalry should be so bril- 
liantly wielded as to be able to check and disconcert 
for some hours the marches of the enemy's columns, 
there was no good ground for imagining that the 
strength of this * outer line/ or the prowess of the 
brave Osmanlis who were to be placed in its earth- 
works, could fairly be brought into use. 

It would seem, therefore, at first sight, that Gene- 
ral de Todleben's severe criticism of the outer line of 
defence must have been well enough justified; but 
the truth is, that the scheme was never recommended 
by our Engineers as a really trustworthy expedient. 
They chose it apparently as a makeshift which might 
more or less baffle a hitherto unenterprising enemy ; 
and, at least, their plan had the merit — the then truly 
enticing merit — of diverting no English forces from 
the great business of the siege \ for if the outer line 
of defence had not been adopted, our cavalry, with 
its attendant troop of horse-artillery, would still have 
been camped in the plain. 

On Canrobert's Hill there was thrown up a slight The works 
breastwork, with its salient towards the north-east ; ing the 
and along the whole line of the Causeway Heights of defence, 
there were formed as many as five other earthworks, 
each smaller and weaker than the one on Canrobert's 



36 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Hill. Of these six works some were open at the 
« — ^ — - gorge, and some closed, but they used to be all called 
' redoubts/ * 

The work on Canrobert's Hill was known as the 
Eedoubt Number One, and the five other works were 
distinguished by successive numbers ; t but the one 
which, in this way, received the name of Number 
Three, was sometimes also called ' Arabtabia/ 
Slight The works were executed by Turkish labour under 
the works, the direction of an English Engineer officer.! They 




were of very weak profile, and a horseman, as was 
proved by the Cossacks, could well enough ride through 



works. 12-pounder iron guns, supplied by Dundas from our 

* Practically — I am not speaking of what might be found in books 
or in the impressions of formulated people — the word redoubt has two 
meanings. In its most confined sense it means a work which is not 
open at the gorge ; but in the everyday language of those military men 
who are not professing to describe in a special and distinctive way, any 
kind of field-work, whether open or not at the gorge, is commonly called 
a ' redoubt.' Like, for instance, the word ship (which may either be 
used in a very general sense, or else may be taken to designate a three- 
masted vessel of a particular rig), the word ( redoubt ' has practically 
two meanings, one general the other distinctive. Lord Raglan — the 
most accurate of men in his language — constantly used the word 1 re- 
' doubt ' in its general sense, applying it indiscriminately to works 
which were open at the gorge as well as to those which were not. 



t I adopt the nomenclature which obtained so generally as to render 
any other inconvenient ; but I may usefully mention that some — and 
amongst them Lord Raglan — did not include the work on Canrobert's 
Hill in the numerical designation. With them the work commonly 
called Number Two would be Number One, and so on. 

X Lieutenant Wagman, I believe ; but I hear Captain Stanton also 
took some part. The work completed in a single day was the ' Number 





and through them. Indeed, one of the works was 
begun, completed, and armed in a single day. 

The work on Canrobert's Hill was armed with three 



' Two." 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



37 



fleet ; and the three redoubts next adjoining it — that CHAP. 

is, the Eedoubt Number Two, the Arabtabia or Re- - — ^ — • 

doubt Number Three, and the Redoubt Number Four 

— were each of them armed with two guns of the same 

sort and calibre/" The two other works — namely, 

the Redoubt Number Five and the Redoubt Number 

Six — were unarmed on the day of the battle. 

The works were manned by Turkish troops, one How 
battalion of these being posted on Canrobert's Hill, 
and a half battalion or wing in each of the Causeway 
redoubts, t 

The work on Canrobert's Hill was perilously ex- The 
posed to any artillery which might be placed in Height 
battery on the neighbouring ridge of Kamara ; and possession 
no arrangements were made for preventing the enemy enemy, 
from seizing this vantage-ground, for the ridge of 
Kamara was itself overtopped by crests ranging 
higher and higher in the direction of Baidar; and 
it was judged that to attempt to hold more ground 
would be to add to the weakness of this outer line. 
As it was, the line of these six earthworks extended Extent 

and re- 
OVer a space of more than two miles ; and Can- moteness 

robert's Hill was so distant from the ground whence outer line. 

supporting forces might be expected to come, as 

* There is a difference between the various authorities which record 
the number and place of these guns, Lord Raglan putting them at seven, 
Todleben at eleven, and others at intermediate numbers. I put them, 
as may be seen, at nine — ' Journal of Operations.' The difference is an 
immaterial one. 

t Erom information communicated to me by Mr Henry Stanley I 
have reason to believe that a French officer at the time remonstrated 
against the plan of leaving the Turks unsupported in such a position. — 
Note to Second Edition. 



38 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, to offer the enemy a licence of some hours' duration 
- — ^ — ' for any enterprise in the plain of Balaclava upon 

which he might think fit to venture/' 5 " 
The force The only force immediately available for attempting 
ateiy to give any support to the Turks was the division of 
fOTsup- 6 English cavalry, which, along with its attendant troop 
the^Turks. 0I> horse-artillery (commanded by Captain Maude), 
was under the orders of Lord Lucan. This division of 
cavalry comprised some 1500 sabres, and was in high 
order. It lay camped on the southern slopes of the 
Causeway Heights, at a distance of not much less 
than two miles from Canrobert's Hill, but it kept an 
outlying picket at a spot near the heights of Kamara. 

Such, then, was the outer line of defence; and this — 
only this — was the force which, except after the lapse of 
some hours, could be expected to come and support 
it. 

sir Colin It is strange, but still true, that for some time 
ben's con- before the 25th of October, Sir Colin Campbell had 

fidence in -, -, . -. « , , . 

the main- been every day growing more and more confident in 
thTpoTi- * the strength of the position. There were moments, 
no doubt, when he spoke more distrustfully, but in 
his report of the 20th of October, sent up to Head- 
quarters, he wrote : c I think we can hold our own 
' against anything that may come against us in day- 
' light. I am, however, a little apprehensive about 
' the redoubts if seriously attacked during the night 

* The distance from Canrobert's Hill to the camp of the nearest 
English division of infantry was only about four miles going straight ; 
but we shall see that, from the moment of first giving the alarm to that 
when an English division could be got down to even the more western 
part of the plain, some hours elapsed. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



39 



and, in a later report, he said, ' I fancy we are now CHAP. 
6 very strong as well as secure/ « — , 

It could not but be that, when so wary and anxious This ne- 
a soldier as Sir Colin reported the position secure, he communi- 
would more or less impart his own trustfulness to Lord t0 
Headquarters ; and it is not to be wondered at that, RaglaD ' 
when thus assured, Lord Raglan abstained from weak- 
ening his scant resources by sending down any fur- 
ther detachments of infantry. 

The Turkish redoubts, though capable of supplying Uncer- 
useful aid to an army, had no such means of inde- t^the aS 
pendent self-defence as to warrant the notion of their camp- 8 ° 
holding out without support ; and it is evident that, fiance™ 1 
in the absence of infantry, nothing short of a vigilant 
and brilliant use of the cavalry arm would enable 
the Turks to withstand a determined attack. I cannot 
say whether Sir Colin Campbell's sense of security 
was in any high degree founded upon the cavalry, 
or whether, for once, he went along with the herd in 
his estimate of what could be insured by a little up- 
turn of the soil with a few Turks standing behind it. 

A main defect in the arrangements of the Allies was 
the one under which it resulted that those divisions of 
infantry on the Chersonese which lay the nearest to 
the plain below were not the troops of the nation which 
undertook to defend Balaclava. Bosquet, with two 
divisions, was so posted on the edge of the Chersonese 
upland, that, judging from their position alone, his 
troops might have been naturally looked to as the first 
to descend into the plain for the defence of Balaclava ; 
and, besides that General Bosquet was an ardent soldier, 



40 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, and a man most loyal in action, there is no reason 
« — ^ — * for supposing that mere difference of nationality alone 
would have made the French slow to come down to 
the aid of Sir Colin Campbell ; but the fact of the 
interposed force being under the orders of a com- 
mander other than Lord Raglan, made a dangerous 
break in the chain by which the Allies held together. 
It was only by persuading General Canrobert to allow 
it, that the nearest of the battalions on the Cherso- 
nese could be made to partake in a battle upon the 
plain of Balaclava ; and the exceeding scantiness of 
the infantry force which Lord Raglan had been able 
to spare for the immediate defence of the place made 
it a thing of great moment that the promptest pos- 
sible despatch of reinforcements should not be left de- 
pendent upon the result of persuasions addressed to an 
independent commander, more especially where the 
commander whose assent thus had to be gained was a 
man of a hesitating and anxious temperament, 
inherent Independently of the inherent fault that there was in 

weakness . 

of the this outer line of defence, the collateral arrangements 

outer line. # e 

Collateral were far from being calculated to avert a disaster, 
mentf e " One important omission was this : In all the works 
tended to constituting this outer line, the Turkish soldiery were 
the^roba- w ^hout tnat strengthening help which might have 
disaste°r f a ^° een afforded them by the presence in each redoubt of 
one or two Englishmen accustomed to rule Orientals ; 
and the want was in no way supplied by sending, in- 
stead, a non-commissioned officer of artillery. * Then, 

* In the mere mechanical business of working a gun the Turkish 
Topdji is likely to be quite as well skilled as an English artilleryman. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



41 



again, since the cavalry was much looked to as an arm CHAP, 
to ward off for some time any Kussian attack, it would > — ^ — ' 
have been well to avoid a severance of authority by 
placing under one commander the whole of the forces, 
whether horse, or foot, or artillery, which were charged 
with the defence of Balaclava ; for excellent as was 
the understanding between Lord Lucan and Sir Colin 
Campbell, their concord was no equivalent for the ad- 
vantage which belongs to absolute unity of command. 

Above all, if the plan of defence were to rest at all 
on our cavalry, there was cogent need of an effort to 
neutralise in some measure the vice of Lord Har- 
dinge's peace - service appointments, and to make 
arrangements for giving more or less of initiative 
power in the field to men such as Morris and Elliot, 
who were practised in war, and knew by their own 
experience what it was to lead squadrons in battle. 
No such effort was made. 

It was against these defences of Balaclava that Mentschi- 

k.off s pur*" 

Prince Mentschikoff now resolved to direct an attack, pose of 
So early as the night of the 13th of the month, Colo- th e a de- 1& 

fences of 

nel Kakovitch, with three battalions, four guns, and a Balaclava, 
couple of hundred Cossacks had ventured down from J^^ 68 
the Mackenzie Heights ; and having been suffered at torthls . 

o ' o enterprise. 

break of day on the following morning to take pos- 

What is wanted for converting a herd of Turks into a formidable body 
of warriors is the presence of a resolute man or boy of a higher station 
in life, who will undertake to lead them. The singular power that can 
be exerted over a Turkish force by a fearless English gentleman is 
spoken of, ante, vol. II. chap. ii. Notwithstanding all that had been 
achieved in the defence of Silistria and on the field of Giurgevo, there 
was an entire neglect of the means which there produced such brilliant 
results. 



42 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, session of the village of Tchorgoun, he there estab- 
' — ^ — ' lished the nucleus of a force complete in all arms, 
which thenceforth began to gather in the valley of 
the Tchernaya. On the 23d, this force had been 
definitively constituted as the e Detachment of Tchor- 
' goun/ and placed under the command of General 
Liprandi. The force comprised 17 battalions of foot, 
30 squadrons of horse,"'" and 64 guns. But besides the 
troops under the orders of Liprandi, there was a dis- 
tinct force, commanded by General Jabrokritsky, and 
comprising some 8 battalions,t 4 squadrons of horse, 
and 14 guns, which had orders to co-operate with the 
Detachment of Tchorgoun. Altogether, therefore, 
the force set apart for the attack upon the defences 
of Balaclava comprised 25 battalions, 34 squadrons of 
horse, and 78 guns. The numerical strength of the 
force is not to be learned with strict accuracy ; J but 
it seems to have amounted to about 25,000 men.§ 

* 20 squadrons of regular cavalry, and 10 * sotnias' (or, as I call them, 
' squadrons') of Cossacks. A ' sotnia' imported about the same number 
of horsemen as a 1 squadron.' General de Todleben is careful to make 
all possible ' deductions from strength,' but he acknowledges that each 
squadron and each sotnia had a strength in effectives of 100 horsemen, 
p. 387. 

f Literally, 7 and fths. 

% Because, at the period in question, the ' morning states ' of the in- 
fantry had been left uncorrected since the beginning of the month, and 
the ' states ' of the cavalry were wanting altogether. — Todleben, p. 388. 

§ On the 25th of October 1854 the most recent ' states ' of the infantry 
strength were those which had been furnished at the beginning of 
the month ; and these, together with the estimated reckoning of the 
cavalry (of which no ' states ' had been prepared), give a total of 23,425, 
without counting the artillerymen, who (at 30 men for each gun) would 
number 2340, making, altogether, 25,725 ; but it is right to say that 
General de Todleben (by making a guess at the deductions from strength 
which may have occurred since the beginning of the month, and by 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



43 



For a sound appreciation of the battle of Balaclava, CHAP, 
it would be well to know what was the object con- • — 2- — • 
templated by the assailant. His primary design was ^t^econ- 
to seize the outer line of defence and the camp of the ^^ ted 
93d Highlanders, as well as the camp of the Turks 
established near Kadikoi."* It is plain, however, that 
the enterprise of an assailant who might attain to so 
much as that would be strangely collapsing if he were 
to stay his victorious advance without doing all he 
could to bring ruin upon the English in the small 
crowded port from which they drew their supplies ; 
and the possession of a spot from which it would have 
been practicable to shell Balaclava must needs have 
been coveted. The destruction of the root which the 
English had taken in Balaclava may therefore, per- 
haps, be regarded as the real, though ulterior object 
of the intended attack. 

The force destined for the attack upon the Turkish Distribu- 
redoubts was divided into three columns. The left Russian 
column was commanded by General Gribbe*, the centre three dis- 
column by General Semiakine, the right column by bodies, 
Colonel Scudery ; and, with that last force, General dutie? 6 
Jabrokritsky s detachment was in close co-operation. to S each d 
Gribbe was to issue from the direction of the Baidar 
valley, seize the heights of Kamara, and thence take 
part in the attack directed against Canrobert's Hill. 
General Semiakine, at the same time, was to advance 
against Canrobert's Hill, and the Bedoubt Number 

reducing the estimate of the cavalry strength) cuts down the total effec- 
tive to 20,500 (p. 388-90). In that estimate, however, he does not, I 
believe, include the 2340 artillerymen. 
* Todleben, p. 384, 387, 388. 



44 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Two, by the road which leads from Tchorgoun to 
1 — ^ — ' Kadikoiy, 

Colonel Scudery's column was to issue from the 
Tractir road, across the North Valley, and advance 
upon the Arabtabia or Eedoubt e Number Three.' 

The main body of the cavalry with its attendant 
batteries was to enter the North Valley, and there 
form in columns of attack to await Liprandi's next 
orders. 

A battalion of the Ukraine regiment, with a com- 
pany of riflemen and a battery of field-artillery, was 
to constitute the reserve. 

Finally, General Jabrokritsky, though not under 
the orders of Liprandi, was to cover the intended 
attack by descending from the region of Mackenzie's 
Farm and taking post on the Fedioukine Hills. 

Notwithstanding the trust they repose in the direct 
intervention of Heaven, the Turks know how to eke 
out their faith by means sufficiently human ; and 
being too warlike a people to be careless of the value 
of foreknowledge in regard to the designs of the 
enemy, they see the use of a scout. The officer who 
had the merit of obtaining, at this time, good, decisive 
intelligence, was Eustem Pasha, the Turkish Briga- 
24th Oct. dier-General. On the 24th of October, a spy em- 
tion of the ployed by him brought back an account which dis- 
march S closed Liprandi's designs for the morrow. The man 
obtained announcec i that troops to the number of 25,000, and 
day before °f a ^ a™s, were to march upon the plain of Bala- 
the battle. c j ava? an( } k e even prepared his hearers to expect an 
advance from the direction of Baidar. He was care- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



45 



fully examined, by Lord Lucan, as well as by Sir Colin CHAP. 
Campbell ; and, both Generals coming to the conclu- « — — ' 
sion that this report was well worthy of attention, ? h ^S 
Lord Bingham (his father's aide-de-camp), was sent ^tion° r " 
by Lord Lucan to Headquarters with a letter from ^ t s h dealfc 
Sir Colin Campbell conveying the intelligence. Lord 
Bingham delivered the letter and the tidings it 
conveyed to the Quartermaster-General, but did not 
succeed in obtaining an interview with Lord Eaglan, 
who was then engaged with Canrobert. General 
Airey, it is true, interrupted the conference of the two 
Commanders, and showed Lord Eaglan the letter; 
but the answer first elicited was only a message of 
acknowledgment sent back in the words, ' Very well ! * 
Afterwards, Lord Eaglan requested that any new The mom- 
occurrence which might take place should be reported 25th Oct? 
to him ; but no fresh orders resulted from the in- ofthlF 
formation thus furnished. The truth is that only j^™* 
a few days before, Lord Eaglan had been induced by Turkish 
a similar report to send down 1000 men of the 4th redoubts - 
Division, who had to be marched back when it proved 
that the enemy was not advancing. 4 ' 5. He could ill 
afford to exhaust the time and strength of his men in 
these marches and countermarches, and he seems to 
have come to the conclusion that it would be inexpe- 
dient for him to be again despatching reinforcements 
to the outer line of defence in the plain of Balaclava, 
unless he should learn that the enemy was actually 
advancing against it. 

* This was on the 21st of October. 



46 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAPTER III. 



CHAP. In accordance with its daily custom, the English 
• — cavalry on the morning of the 25th of October had 



The hour turned out an hour before daybreak; and the men 
daybreak were standing to their horses when Lord Lucan, 
Advance a l rea( ty m the saddle and followed by his Staff, 
Lucan and move( l °^ at a wa lk towards Canrobert's Hill. Two 
his staff f the Divisional Staff— Lord "William Paulet, I think, 

in the di- 7 

rectionof anc [ Mai or M'Mahon, who had now, it seems, been 

Canro- J 7 7 

bert'sHiii. joined by Lord George Paget — were riding some dis- 
tance in rear of their chief, and had come within 
about 300 paces of Canrobert's Hill, when a streak of 
pale light in the horizon before them began to dis- 
Break of close the morning. Presently, there was grey enough 
flags seen to show through the dusk that Canrobert's Hill was 
the'fort 0111 not without its standard ; but soon it became almost 
robert^s clear, and presently afterwards certain, that from 

Hill 

the flag-staff of the work two ensigns were flying. 

Theim- < Holloa ! ' said one, c there are two flags flying ! 

this. ' What does that mean % ' ' Why, that surely/ said 
another, — ' that surely is the arranged signal — the 
' signal that the enemy is advancing. Are you quite 
' sure % ; The questioner was soon answered ; for 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



47 



scarcely had lie spoken when the fort opened fire CHAP, 
from one of its 12-pounder guns. The Staff-officers • — ^-1— > 
hurried forward to overtake their chief; and Lord Lord 
George Paget galloped back at speed to the cavalry paget^in 
camp, where (in the absence of Lord Cardigan, who senceof 
had the practice of sleeping on board his yacht, and digan, Car 
had not yet come up from Balaclava) he took upon J^hlinTeif 
himself to mount the Light Brigade. He had hardly ^eTJht 
done this when a messenger came in from the front Bn g ade - 

Orders 

with an order despatched by Lord Lucan (then re- from Lord 
connoitring with Sir Colin Campbell in the direction the imme- 
of our advanced post) which directed the immediate van ce of 

I p , i i the eav- 

advance of the cavalry. alry# 
Thus it seems that the Turks not only obtained the vigilance 

• it n t evinced on 

earliest intelligence of the impending attack, but were this occa- 
also the first to perceive the advance of the enemy, the Turks. 
The elevation of Canrobert's Hill may have aided 
their surveys ; but without being watchful and saga- 
cious, they could hardly have succeeded in being 
beforehand with so keen a soldier as Sir Colin 
Campbell. 

We watched the sweet slumbers of a Cabinet whilst 
assenting to the cogent despatch which enforced this 
invasion ; but now, in the midst of the campaign, and 
at a moment when accounts have come in, which an- 
nounce an attack for the morrow in the direction of 
the Baidar valley, we may steal before break of day to 
the ground where the enemy is expected, and there, 
seek our ideal of vigilance in the outlying cavalry 
picket. 

We shall seek in vain. The English soldier s want 



48 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, of vigilance is so closely allied to some of his greatest 
« — ^— ' qualities (as, for instance, to his pride, and his sullen 
iTshso"- 8 " unwillingness to be put out of his way by mere 
want of danger), that our countrymen incline to think of it 
vigilance. w ith indulgence, nay, perhaps, with an unconfessed 
liking ; but if the fault is in some measure natural 
and characteristic, it has been aggravated apparently 
by the empty ceremonies of military duty in peace- 
time ; for to go on rehearsing men day after day, and 
year after year, in the art of giving and taking pre- 
tended alarms about nothing, and to carry on these 
rehearsals by means of formulated sentences, is to 
do all that perverted industry can towards prevent- 
ing, instead of securing, the ' bright look-out 'of the 
seaman. 

The relation that there is between standing armies 
and war bears analogy to that which connects en- 
dowed churches with religion ;* and, in particular, the 
Anglican arrangements for securing the infant mind 
against heresy show a curious resemblance to those 
which are made during peace for preventing surprises 
in war - time. Whether aiming at the one or the 
other of these objects, man tries to secure it by 
formula. Just as through the means of set questions 

* I have been justly reminded by Dean Stanley that the practice of 
arming young creatures with dogma is not at all confined to established 
churches ; and, as now corrected, I agree that, although not furnished 
by the State, any funds provided for a particular worship in a continuous, 
chronic way, have a tendency to produce the effect mentioned in the 
text. It seems that in some of the churches got up by subscription 
the theology professed by the children is much more bold and violent 
than that which obtains in our Anglican nurseries. — Note to 3d 
Edition. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



49 



and answers, the anxious theologian arms children CHAP. 

. . Ill 
against 1 false doctrine/ in the trust that, when they 1 — 

come to riper years, they may know how to treat his 
opponents, so also with him who makes rules for the 
governance of soldiers in peace-time, the hope, it 
seems, is that they may learn to be vigilant against 
night surprises by repeatedly saying their catechism. 
The common ' challenge ; is brief ; but, it being fore- 
seen that he who is appointed to watch may himself 
require watching, the functionaries called 'visiting 
' rounds ' have been invented whose duty it is to see 
that the sentries are at their posts and awake ; but 
as this task of supervision has itself also lapsed into 
form, the result is, that at a military post requiring 
great vigilance, there goes on, all night, a reiteration 
of set questions and answers, which tends to avert 
real watchfulness by suggesting that a mere formal 
sign of not being absolutely asleep will sufficiently 
answer the purpose. Men trained to ' look out ' as 
do sailors, are more likely to pierce to the utmost of 
what eye and ear can reach, than those who are re- 
peating to one another, and repeating and repeating 
all night, set lessons, of which this is one : e Halt ! 
'who goes there?' ' Eounds !' 'What rounds?' 
' Visiting rounds ! ' ' Visiting rounds advance ! All's 
well!' When these words have been reiterated by 
the same men a few thousand times, they are as 
lulling as the monotone waves that beat and still beat 
on the shore. The truth is, that the object of securing 
a really keen watchfulness is one which lies out of 
the true scope of mechanical arrangements. A man's 

VOL. IV. D j 



50 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, wits may be easily deadened, they can hardly be 
- — ^— ' sharpened, by formula. 

The out- Far from detecting the earliest signs of an advance 
pESet. in force, and being at once driven in, our outlying 
picket enjoyed its tranquillity to the last, and was 
only, indeed, saved from capture, by the ' field officer 
6 of the day/ who learnt, as he rode, what was pass- 
ing, and conveyed to the men of the watch — just in 
time to secure their escape — that warning of the ene- 
my's approach which they themselves should have given. 
The ene- Lord Lucan and Sir Colin Campbell were together 
vanc e a per- a good way in advance ; and, as day broke, they saw 
ceived by ^ enemy's columns of infantry in march — saw them 
Sir°Co]in d converging upon the easterly approaches of the 
CampbeU. Causeway Heights from the directions of Tchorgoun 
and Baidar. It soon became apparent that, whatever 
might be his ulterior design, Liprandi's first object 
was the seizure of the Turkish defences, beginning 
intern- with Canrobert's Hill ; and Lord Lucan did not fail 
gencesent ^ despatch an aide-de-camp to Headquarters with 
Kaghm. intelligence of the impending attack."" 
Lord Lu- Our cavalry was brought forward ; and the guns of 

Ccin's (lis* 

position of Maude's troop of horse-artillery were got into battery 
airy and On the right of the Arabtabia or Number Three 
artniery. Redoubt. The Light Cavalry regiments were placed 
in reserve under the southern slopes of the Causeway 
Lord Heights ; and Lord Lucan, then acting in person with 
'demon- his Heavy Brigade, sought to check the advance of 
^thhT' tne enemy by ' demonstrations t but— with the full 

cavalry. * Q a pf; am Charteris was the officer sent. 

f ' Lord Lucan with the Heavy Cavalry moved about, making de- 
£ monstrations and threatening the enemy.' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



51 



approval of Sir Colin Campbell, who indeed seems to CHAP, 
have counselled this policy — he determined to con- - — ^— * 
fine himself to threats. His threats failed to deter ; The ene- 
for the Russians pursued their design like men who 
had yet found no hindrance ; and indeed it seems deslgn - 
probable that the firmness of purpose they soon after 
disclosed was in some measure occasioned by the 
circumstance of their having detected our cavalry 
leader in a determination to threaten without striking. 
Since the ground, in most places, was favourable for 
the manoeuvring of horsemen, with no such obstruc- 
tions as would prevent them from attempting flank 
attacks on the enemy's infantry and artillery, it may 
be that a cavalry officer fresh from war-service would 
have been able to check Liprandi, and to check him, 
again and again, without sustaining grave loss ; but 
if a man can so wield a body of cavalry as to make 
it the means of thus arresting for a time an attack 
of infantry and artillery without much committing 
his squadrons, he has attained 'to high art' in his 
calling ; and to expect a peace - service general to 
achieve such a task, is much as though one should 
take a house-painter at hazard and bid him portray 
a Madonna. There were riding amongst our squad- 
rons men well tried in war — men famed alike for 
their valour and their skill as cavalry officers ; and 
although the perversity of our State authorities 
laboured, as it were, to neutralise the unspeakable 
value of such experience by putting the men who 
possessed it under peace - service generals, yet if 
Campbell's command had included that cavalry arm 



52 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAR 
III. 



The ad- 
vance of 
General 
Gribb6 
from the 
direction 
of Baidar. 
He seizes 
Kamara, 
and estab- 
lishes a 
battery, 
which 
opens fire 
at close 
range on 
the Re- 
doubt No. 
L 



which formed so large a proportion of the scanty 
resources, available, at first for defence, it is imagin- 
able that he would have been able to say a few 
words to some such a man as Morris, which would 
have had the effect of checking the enemy without 
bringing grave loss on our squadrons."* Such a result 
would appear to be the more within reach, when it 
is remembered that Liprandi's advance was in three 
columns moving upon ' external lines ' without speedy 
means of intercommunication, and that Gribbe^s 
column — the one upon which the whole enterprise 
much depended — comprised only three battalions of 
infantry, t 

The Eussians had begun their advance at five 
o'clock in the morning. Without encountering the 
least opposition, General Gribbe, moving forward from 
the direction of the Baidar valley with three bat- 
talions, a squadron of horse, and ten pieces of cannon, 
had been suffered to take possession of the village of 
Kamara ; and when there, he was not only enabled 
to cover the advance of the assailing forces on their 
left flank, but also on the high ground above — 
ground commanding the object of attack — to estab- 
lish his ten guns in battery, with the purpose of 
directing their fire, at close range, upon the work 
crowning Canrobert's Hill.J 

* I refer to Captain Morris (commanding the 17th Lancers) and 
Lieutenant Alexander Elliot (aide-de-camp to General Scarlett) merely 
as the two war-service officers of cavalry then in the Crimea whose 
names first occur to me. They were both of them men who had earned 
fame in honest war. 

t See, in the Appendix, Lord Lucan's view as to this. 

J This battery included, besides six light field-pieces of the No. 6 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



53 



Nearly at the same time, Semiakine's forces having CHAP, 
advanced from Tchorgoun gained the slopes of the « — 
ridge on the north-east and north of Canrobert s Hill. ^ d t ™ c c e e n _ 
With five battalions (besides a separate body of rifle- *™n under 
men) and ten guns, General Semiakine in person g e e ^kLe- 
prepared to operate against the work on Canrobert's 
Hill ^ ; whilst, on his 1 right, General Levoutsky took OfLevout- 
up a like position with three more battalions and ten force : 
guns.t His goal was the Redoubt Number Two. 

At the same time Colonel Scudery, who with the Of Colonel 
four Odessa battalions, a company of riflemen, three column : 
squadrons of Cossacks, and a field-battery, had ad- 
vanced from the Tractir bridge, was now moving 
upon the Arabtabia. % 

The main body of the cavalry under General RyjofF, of the 
with its attendant troops of horse-artillery, was al- cavalry, 
ready in the North Valley, and supporting the advance batteries 

n ,-i i it escort- 

oi the columns. ed. 

Whilst the Russians were marching upon the The emer- 
gency in 

heights which they now occupied, and whilst they which 
were there establishing their thirty guns in battery ? can had to 



act. 



Light Battery, four guns of heavier calibre belonging to the Position 
Battery No. 4 (Liprandi's despatch, October 26, 1854). The three bat- 
talions were the 1st, 2d, and 3d battalions of the Dnieper regiment. 
The squadron was one belonging to Jeropkine's Lancers. 

* With four battalions of the Azoff regiment, one — viz., the 4th — 
of the Dnieper battalions, the 2d company of the Kifle battalion, 
four heavy guns of the Position Battery No. 4, and six pieces of the 
Light Battery No. 6. 

t The three Ukraine battalions, four heavy guns of the Position 
Battery No. 4, and six guns of the Light Battery No. 7. 

% On Redoubt ' Number Three.' The riflemen forming part of Scud- 
ery's column were of the 4th Rifle battalion, the Cossacks of the 53d 
Cossack Regiment, and the battery was No. 7 of the 12th brigade. 



54 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Lord Lucan, as we see, was present with a superb 
< I y 1 ' ' division of cavalry, and this upon fine ground, which, 
though hilly, was very free from obstructions ; but 
except his six light pieces of horse-artillery, he was 
wanting in the ordnance arm, and of infantry forces 
he had none. Thus, then, by a somewhat rare con- 
currence of circumstances, there was brought about 
an emergency which enforced, and enforced most 
cogently, the decision of a question involving more 
or less the general usefulness of the cavalry arm. 

Some are chary, it seems, of acknowledging a condi- 
tion of things in which cavalry can be used for the re- 
pression of the ordnance arm. Others fully agreeing 
that a body of horse, with its great extent of vulnerable 
surface, must beware of coming, or at all events of 
remaining, under the fire of artillery, are yet of opinion 
that cavalry, after all, is the very arm which, in many 
contingencies, can best be exerted against the power 
of ordnance. They say that artillery in march, or 
engaged in unlimbering, is good prey for horsemen ; 
that artillery established in battery is assailable by 
horsemen at its flanks ; and that, in general, where the 
country is at all open, a powerful and well-handled 
cavalry ought to be able to challenge the dominion of 
artillery by harassing it incessantly, by preventing 
it from getting into battery, and, failing that, by dis- 
quieting its batteries when formed. 
Hisdeci- The decision of Lord Lucan was much governed 

sion. ° 

by a sense of the great need there would be for the 
aid of our cavalry if the enemy, after carrying all 
the outer defences, should come on and attack Bala- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



55 



clava ; * but it would also seem that his determina- C HA P. 

tion — a determination entirely approved, and even, • — ^— ' 
I hear, originated by Sir Colin Campbell — involved a 
leaning to the first of the two opinions above indicated. 

Be this as it may, the result was that, without TheKus- 

. i«n p sians were 

being met by any hindrance on the part 01 our cav- suffered to 

airy, the Eussians were suffered to advance from three their bat- 

* tones 

points of the compass and converge upon the chain of against 

little redoubts which extended from Canrobert's Hill bert's Hiii 
to the Arabtabia. The thousand or twelve hundred 2 he 

Turks who manned the three works thus assailed saw Redoubt 
converging upon them some eleven thousand infantry 
and thirty-eight guns. Upon the heights of Kamara, 
which overlooked Canrobert's Hill from the east, and 
upon the part of the Causeway Heights which over- 
looked the same work from the north, the enemy placed 
thirty guns in battery ; and he now opened fire upon 
the work crowning Canrobert's Hill, as also upon the 

Fort Number Two. He was answered by the Turks Fire an- 

with their five 12-pounders ; t and, for a while, by our by the t0 

troop of horse-artillery, but apparently with little ^hout d 

effect. Captain Maude, the officer commanding the Xct) by 

troop, was horribly wounded by a shell which entered £f horse P 

the body of his horse and there burst. artillery. 

- Captain 

Maude's troop had come into action without a due Maude 
following of waggons ; and, before long, its ammuni- 
tion was already so nearly exhausted as to leave but 
a small supply for even one gun. 

* See Lord Lucan's statement in the Appendix, 
f Three on Canrobert's Hill, and a couple on the Number Two 
Kedoubt. 



56 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. As soon as Lord Lucan heard this, he ordered that 
-—^—j the troop should be withdrawn and kept out of fire 

of h hor 8 e° P until t]ie want could be supplied* 

artillery was hardly to be expected that under the fire of 

sent out oi j r 

by thirty guns, including eight pieces of heavy calibre, 
Lucan. the three 12 -pounders which formed the arma- 
ment of Canrobert's Hill would long remain unclis- 
The fort abled. The fort became silent, and already the hap- 
bert'sHm less battalion which manned it must have under- 

silenced 

by over- gone heavy slaughter ; but notwithstanding this, and 
^heimmg a | t ] 10U g] 1 ft became now apparent that the hill was to 
be attacked by largely outnumbering bodies of infan- 
Continued try, the brave Turks were still unconquered. They 

resistance . 

of the moved, indeed, from the unsheltered part of the work 

Turks. . r 

to the side where more cover was offered ; but there 
they stood fast and awaited the attack of the in- 
fantry.f 

Disposi- It was with the five battalions acting under his per- 
by General sonal direction that General Semiakine determined to 
for^torm. 6 storm Canrobert's Hill. Covered by the fire of the 
robert's" artillery, and by two companies of riflemen, pushed 
forward in skirmishing order, he advanced rapidly 
with three battalions of the Azoff regiment, disposed 
in columns of company, and so ranged in two lines of 
columns as that the first line was only about 100 
paces in advance of the second. In a third line, 
General Semiakine brought up the 1st battalion of 
the Azof! regiment and the 4th of the Dnieper battal- 



* Ibid. Maude's severe wound was the reason why Lord Lucan in- 
stituted no inquiry as to the cause which led to this want of ammunition, 
t This sketch may help to illustrate the attack of the eleven bat- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



57 



ions, each formed in a c column of attack/ Ad vane- CHAP. 

Ill 

ing in this order, he approached to within about 100 < — 
paces of the hill- top, and at once gave the signal for The work 
the assault. Then the two foremost lines of columns, 
led by Colonel Krudener, the commander of the AzofF 
regiment, and supported by the two columns of attack, 
moved rapidly forward. Encountering no fire of can- 
non to check them, the foremost of these troops con- 
verged from their extended front upon the small ob- 
ject of their attack, swarmed in across the ditch, 
swarmed over the feeble parapet, and, standing at 
length within the fort, closed at once with the remnant 
of the single battalion there bravely awaiting the on- 0ver - 

& . J & whelming 

slaught. The force which thus stormed the work, and strength 

. . of the 

which threw itself upon the remnant of the one Turk- Russians 
ish battalion, consisted, as we see, of five battalions ; numbers. 



talions, with thirty guns, upon the two little works, No. 1 and No. 2, 
which were defended by about 1000 or 1200 Turks with five guns. 



58 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, but on the side of Kamara, the three other Dnieper 

III • ... 

- — ^-i—/ battalions were so operating that Sir Colin Campbell 

regarded them as actual partakers in the attack ; and, 
moreover, Levoutsky's three Ukraine battalions, though 
not engaged in the storming, were still so placed at 
the time as to be aiding the assault by their presence. 
Upon the whole, therefore, it may be said that, after 
having undergone an overwhelming cross-fire from the 
thirty pieces of artillery, which hurled destruction 
upon them at close range from commanding heights, 
the one battalion of Turks which defended this feeble 
breastwork, was now pressed by a number of bat- 
talions amounting to no less than eleven, and engaged 
in close conflict with five. 
Close It commonly happens in modern warfare that the 

lighting ... 

between dominion of one body of infantry over another is 

the Turks 

and the not found to depend, at the last, upon the physical 
strength of man, or the quality of his weapons, but 
rather upon faith, or, in other words, upon sense 
of power. In this instance, however, the assailants 
and the assailed were both so resolute that, for once, 
the actual clash of arms was not to be averted 
by opinion. The many flooded in upon the few, 
overwhelming, surrounding, destroying, yet still con- 
fronted with heroic desperation, and owing all the 
way they could make to the sheer fighting of the 
men, who thus closed with their Mussulman foe, and 
The fort to the weight of the numbers behind them. With 
carried! h much slaughter of the devoted Turks — who lost, in 
killed only, no less than 170 out of perhaps about 
five or six hundred men — the work was carried at 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



59 



aalf-past seven o'clock, with its standard and its CHAP. 

. Ill 
?uns ; but it seems that, before moving out, the « — ^—^ 

English artilleryman who had been placed in the 

redoubt to assist the Turks took care to spike the 

guns which had armed it. The colour of the Azoff 

regiment now floated from the summit of Canrobert's 

Hill. 

When the Turks in the three next redoubts saw Abandon- 
how it had fared with their brethren on Canrobert's the Turks 
Hill, and perceived that, under the eyes of some three next 
1500 English horse, the work was left to fall into the redoubts * 
enemy's hands without a squadron being launched to 
support it by any attack on the foe, they had what to 
them would seem reason for thinking ill things of the 
Christians, and were not without warrant for judging 
that the English would fail to support them in any 
endeavour they might make to defend the remain- 
ing forts. But whether these Osmanlis reasoned, or 
whether they simply caught fear, as people catch 
plague, by contagion, they at all events loosed their 
hold."" Without waiting for a conflict with the three 
Ukraine battalions, then already advancing to the 
assault, or the four Odessa battalions, then also 
advancing, they at once began to make off, taking 
with them their quilts and the rest of their simple 
camp treasures. Coming west with these burthens Their 
upon them, they looked more like a tribe in a state der h fire of 
of migration than troops engaged in retreat. In their a^dpur-' 
flight they were followed for a while by the fire of suedin 

* In those redoubts, as in the Number One, the English artilleryman 
present in each is said to have spiked the guns. 



60 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, the Eussian artillery ; and although Lord Lucan 
> — ^— ; sought to cover their retreat with his cavalry, the 
places by Cossacks, at some points, pursued, and were able to 
Cossacks. S p ear man y f the fugitives.* Eustem Pasha had a 

horse shot under him. 
Theene- The enemy not only established a portion of his 

my enter- 

ing four of forces on Canrobert's Hill, but likewise in the Number 

the re- 

doubts Two Eedoubt, as well as in the Arabtabia or Number 
lishing Three ; and he took possession of the seven iron 12- 
tnrel e of m pounder guns with which the three works had been 
them * armed. He also, with the Odessa battalions, marched 
into the Eedoubt Number Four ; but instead of under- 
taking to hold the work, he did what he could to 
raze and dismantle it. He then withdrew, because 
he deemed the position too far in advance to allow 
of his undertaking to hold it. 

Our cavalry now became exposed to some musketry 
shots which were successfully directed against it from 
the positions of the lost redoubts ; and, as it was also 
apparent that our horsemen were in the line of the 
fire which the gunners along our inner line of defence 
might soon have occasion to open, Lord Lucan, in 
accordance with an arrangement to that effect which 
had been preconcerted with Sir Colin Campbell, with- 
drew his division to a part of the South Valley which 
was between the Number Four and the Number Five 
Eedoubts. The position he then took up was across 

* Captain Tatham, E.N., the senior naval officer in the harbour of 
Balaclava, chanced to come np at this time, and although he knew no 
Turkish, he yet by his peculiarly cheery voice and gesture was able to 
rally the fugitives who most nearly approached him, and cause them to 
align with their brethren on the right of the 93d. — Note to 2d Edition. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



61 



the valley, his squadrons facing eastward. He was CHAP, 
so placed as to be able to take in flank any enemy's - — <^-~> 
force which might bend away from the valley and p^i^ 8 * 
endeavour to pass to the south, with intent to assail °[ r ° urcav " 
Balaclava. 



Such, then, was the first period of the battle of Observa- 
Balaclava ; and it must be acknowledged that the the first 
engagement, if it had closed at this time, would have the battle, 
furnished a distressing page for the military history 
of England. War often demands bitter sacrifices, 
and may sometimes force men to repress — not only 
their generous impulses, but — even those appeals of 
the conscience which a too fiery soldier might treat 
as the absolute dictates of honour. It may therefore 
well be that Lord Lucan performed a stern duty, 
when (with the sanction of Sir Colin Campbell) he 
determined that our cavalry must be patient of the 
attack directed against Canrobert's Hill, must endure 
to see English guns captured, must suffer our allies to 
be slaughtered without striking a blow to defend them ; 
and the soundness of his conclusion can hardly be 
determined by the casuists, but rather by those who 
know something of the conditions in which the power 
of the cavalry arm (when cavalry chances to be the 
only available force) can be wisely, and therefore 
rightly, exerted.* 

If our people in general had known the truth, they 
would have been guilty of unspeakable meanness 

* The opinion of our cavalry, so far as I have been able to observe 
it, tends to sanction Lord Lucan's decision. 



62 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, when they cast off all blame from themselves, and 
III. 

> — ^— * laid it upon the Turkish soldiery — upon men who 
had been not only entrusted to the honour and friend- 
ship of our army, but were actually engaged at a 
post of danger in defending the first approaches to 
the English port of supply.* 

The truth is, however, that the great bulk of our 
army (including Lord Eaglan himself) had regarded 
the work on Canrobert s Hill as a fastness susceptible 
of a protracted defence ; and — strange as the statement 
may seem — were, for a long time, unacquainted with 
the nature of the conflict there sustained by the brave 
Turkish soldiery. Several causes contributed to ob- 
scure the truth. In the first place, the defence of 
the work, though carried to extremity, was still of 
necessity brief ; for when once the men, numbered 
by thousands, had swarmed in over a feeble parapet 
on the top of an isolated hillock which was held by 
only some 500 or 600 men, the end, of course, could 
not be distant ; and although there were numbers of 
our cavalry men who had been so posted as to be able 
to see that the Turks stood their ground with despera- 
tion, and were in close bodily strife with the enemy 
before they gave way under his overwhelming num- 
bers, yet to the great bulk of the spectators, whether 
English or French, who gazed from the steeps of the 

* Lord Lucan was never one of those who thus spoke. He could see 
the nature of the conflict on Canrobert's Hill, and I believe he has 
always spoken generously of the firmness with which the Turks awaited 
the onslaught of overpowering numbers. Sir Colin Campbell was also 
a spectator ; and he says in his despatch, — ' The Turkish troops in 
1 No. 1 persisted as long as they could, and then retired.' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



63 



Chersonese, no such spectacle was presented. They CHAP, 
looked from the west; and, the attack being made upon « — ^— ' 
the north-eastern acclivity of Canrobert's Hill, they saw 
nothing of the actual clash that occurred between the 
brave few and the resolute many. They descried the 
enemy on the heights of Kamara and on the line of 
the Woronzoff road, but lost sight of him when from 
that last position he had descended into the hollow 
to make his final assault ; and soon afterwards, with- 
out having been able to make out what had passed 
in the interval, they saw the Turkish soldiery begin- 
ning to stream down from the gorge of the work. 
Then almost immediately they saw the red fezzes 
pouring out from the other redoubts, so that what 
they observed on the whole was a general flight of 
the Turks. They saw nothing of the fierce though 
short strife which ended in the slaughter of 170 out 
of the 500 or 600 men on Canrobert's Hill; and I 
believe it may be said that the loss sustained by the 
devoted garrison of this little field-work long remained 
unknown to the English. Considering that the Turkish 
soldiery died fighting in defence of the English lines, 
this may seem very strange and unnatural ; but the 
truth is, that between the soldiers of the Prophet and 
the men of our Army List there was so great a gulf 
that it proved much more than broad enough to 
obstruct the transmission of military statistics. The 
man temporal who would ask for a ' Morning State/ 
with its column after column of figures, is baffled, 
of course, by the man spiritual, who replies, that by 
the blessing of the Almighty his servants are as the 



64 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



leaves of the forest ; and soon ceases to apply for a list 
of ' casualties ' if lie only elicits an answer asserting 
the goodness of God and an indefinite accession of 
believers to the promised gardens of Paradise.* Cer- 
tainly, Lord Eaglan remained long unacquainted with 
the nature of the defence which the Turks had op- 
posed to the enemy on Canrobert's Hill.t It was from 
ignorance of the bare facts, and not from dishonest or 
ungenerous motives, that our people threw blame on 
the Turkish soldiery. 

* I find in the correspondence between the French and English 
Headquarters some trace of an attempt on the part of one of the hapless 
Turkish commanders to have justice done to his people ; but probably 
the remonstrant did not know how to state a fact in such way as to 
obtain for it any real access to the European mind, for it does not ap- 
pear that he succeeded in conveying any clear idea to the mind of 
General Canrobert. 

f This is shown very clearly by the tenor of his correspondence. 
Any one who ever had means of judging of Lord Raglan's nature must 
be able to imagine the eagerness with which, upon learning the truth, 
he would have hastened to redress the wrong done. 



CHAP. 
III. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



65 



CHAPTER IV. 



All this while, the French and the English Com- c H A P. 
manders on the Chersonese had been too distant from v__£^l_, 
the scene of the attack against the Turkish redoubts 
to be able to sway the result ; but they, each of them, 
proceeded to make arrangements for ulterior opera- 
tions. 

Upon being apprised of the impending attack, The spot 
Lord Eaglan had at once ridden up to that part LordRag- 
of the ridge which best overlooked the scene of himself 
the then commencing engagement and as soon as apprised* 8 
his sure, rapid glance had enabled him to apprehend attack, 
the probable scope and purport of his assailant's de- 
sign, he determined to move down two out of his five His dis- 

positions 

infantry divisions for the defence of Balaclava. The for the 
1st Division, under the Duke of Cambridge, and Balaclava, 
the 4th Division, under General Cathcart, were ac- securing 

* • jj 1 j c forces 

cordingly despatched upon this service. on the 

Cherso- 

f The order to the Duke of Cambridge was in substance gainst a 
apparently to descend into the south valley by a line some surprise. 

* The spot he occupied was one close to the Col, on the north side 
of the road. Thence he witnessed the capture of the work on Can- 
robert's Hill, and the flight of the Turks from the other redoubts. — 
Note to 3d Edition. 

t This new interpolation is too long for a ' footnote,' and therefore 

VOL. IV. E 



66 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, way to the right of the Woronzoff road ; and at all events, 
t , Lord Eaglan was well satisfied with the way in which 
H.RH. obeyed the command. 

With respect to Cathcart, it was otherwise, and a detailed 
statement is necessary. On observing the flight of the 
Turks, Lord Eaglan at once called to him a staff-officer, and 
desired him to proceed as quickly as possible to Sir George 
Cathcart, and to request him to move his Division imme- 
diately to the assistance of Sir Colin Campbell.* The 
officer was just starting, when General Airey came up to 
him and said, ' Remember you are on no account whatever 
' to conduct the 4th Division by the Woronzoff road. He 
' said this with marked emphasis.' The officer then galloped 
as fast as he could to the 4th Division camp, and found Sir 
George Cathcart dressed and seated in his tent. Then 
followed this colloquy : — 

Staff-Officer, — Lord Eaglan requests you, Sir George, 
to move your Division immediately to the assistance of the 
Turks. 

Cathcart. — Quite impossible, sir, for the 4th Division to 
move. 

Staff-Officer. — My orders were very positive, and the 
Russians are advancing upon Balaclava. 

stands printed above ; bnt being in a separate type, it cannot of course 
be confounded with the " text " of the former editions, which I am still 
anxious to leave unaltered. The same remark applies to the interpola- 
tion made at p. 219. — Note to 3d Edition. 

* There was, I think, some ambiguity in this order, for it might 
either mean that the 4th Division was to make straight for the immediate 
front of Balaclava, or for that part of Sir Colin's ground from which 
the Turks had just fled ; but the very able staff-officer intrusted with 
the mission had no doubt that the first of these objects was the one 
meant, and as a circumstance favouring that view it should be borne in 
mind that Balaclava was then in danger of an attack from the east as 
well as from the north. My impression is, that the second of the two 
objects was the one contemplated by Lord Raglan ; but even on that 
supposition — for recourse to the Woronzoff road was strictly and rightly 
prohibited — the route by the Col (which was practicable for artillery) 
was probably the best that could be taken by a force marching from 
Cathcart's camp. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



67 



Cathcart. — I can't help that, sir. It is impossible for C H A P. 
my Division to move, as the greater portion of the men have . ^ , 
only just come from the trenches. The best thing you can 
do is to sit down and take some breakfast with me. 

Staff-Officek (after respectfully declining the invita- 
tion). — My orders are to request that you will move your 
Division immediately to the assistance of Sir Colin Campbell. 
I feel sure every moment is of consequence. Sir Colin 
Campbell has only the 93d Highlanders with him. I saw 
the Turks in full flight from the redoubts. 

Cathcaet. — Well, sir, if you will not sit down in my 
tent, you may as well go back to Lord Eaglan, and tell him 
that I cannot move my Division. 

The staff-officer touched his cap, left the tent, and rode 
off a few yards, considering how he could best act. After a 
few moments' consideration, he saw all the terrible con se- 
quences that might result from his yielding to Cathcart. 
His mind was soon made up. He returned to Sir George 
Cathcart, and at once told him that he (the staff-officer) 
should not return to Lord Eaglan; that he had received 
orders to come for the 4th Division, and that he should 
remain till it was ready to move off. He pointed out firmly 
but respectfully that much valuable time had been lost, and 
said he still hoped that Sir George would give orders for the 
Division to fall in. Sir George listened attentively to all 
the staff-officer urged, and then to his great relief said, 
' Very well, sir ; I will consult with my staff-officers, and see 
' if anything can be done.' Cathcart then went away, and 
in a short time some bugles sounded, and the Division began 
to turn out. Under the guidance of the staff-officers (who 
considered that Kadikoi was the point to make for), the 
Division marched off to the Col.* 

Lord Raglan, however, was not without suspicion 
that the operations in the plain of Balaclava might be 

* Circumstances indicative of Cathcart's state of temper, and in some 
measure tending to account for it, will be found narrated in Vol. V. of 
the ' Invasion of the Crimea.' 



68 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. a feint, and that the real attack might be made from 

IV. & 
• — « — ' Sebastopol upon the besieging forces. He took care 

to make provision for such a contingency ; and his 
oral directions for the purpose were conveyed by 
Captain Calthorpe, one of his aides-de-camp, to Sir 
Richard England, the Commander of the 3d Division. 
General General Canrobert, also, upon hearing of the attack 
also on galloped up to the ridge overlooking the Balaclava 
msdtpo- pl am ; an d ultimately, though not all at once, the 
sations. French Commander moved down to the foot of the 
heights both Vinoy's and Espinasse's brigades of 
infantry, and also the two cavalry regiments of 
the Chasseurs d'Afrique, regiments comprising eight 
squadrons, and commanded by General d'Allonville. 
Apparent There was, however, an evident difference between 
of ophdon the opinion which governed the English Commander 
theFrench and the one entertained by Canrobert. Keenly alive, 
English as was natural, to a danger which threatened his only 
manders. sea P or t> an d hoping besides, I imagine, that the some- 
what dimmed prospects of the siege might be cleared 
by a fight in the plain, Lord Eaglan, at this time, had 
not entertained the idea of surrendering ground to 
the enemy, and was preparing to recover the heights. 
General Canrobert, on the other hand, was of course 
less directly concerned in keeping watch over Bala- 
clava; and having become impressed with a belief 
that it was the object of the Eussians to draw him 
down from his vantage-ground on the Chersonese, he 
seems to have resolved that he would baffle the 
enemy's supposed policy by clinging fast to the up- 
land. Accordingly, it will be seen (if we chance to 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



69 



speak further of these French infantry reinforce- CHAP, 
ments), that though Vinoy's brigade pushed for- « — ^— <> 
ward, at one time, to ground near the gorge of 
Kadikoi, it was afterwards withdrawn from its ad- 
vanced position, and ordered to rejoin the other 
brigade of the 1st Division close under the steeps of 
the Chersonese. 

As a means of covering Balaclava, the position The new 
taken up by Lord Lucan near the gorge of Kadikoi tion which 
is believed to have been very well chosen ; but the lan made 
Commander-in-Chief, at this time, was indulging the cavalry 
expectation of something like a battle to be fought divlS10n • 
with all arms; and he apparently desired that his 
cavalry should not be entangled in combat until the 
arrival of the two divisions of foot, then already de- 
spatched, should give Lord Lucan an opportunity of 
acting in co-operation with our infantry forces. He 
accordingly sent down an order which compelled Lord 
Lucan, though not without reluctance, nor even, in- 
deed, without anger, to withdraw his horsemen to 
ground on the left of the Eedoubt Number Six at the 
foot of the Chersonese upland.** 

When this retrograde movement of our cavalry had Approach- 

m ing con- 

been completed, the whole of the forces of all arms with centration 

on the 

which Canrobert and Lord Eaglan proposed to engage west of 

_ . t • i i it • * ne Cause- 

Liprandi might be regarded as approaching to a state way 

of concentration near the westernmost limits of the forceswith 

* Captain Wetherall was the bearer of the order, which ran thus : 
1 Cavalry to take ground to the left of second line of redoubts occu- 
1 pied by Turks and the Captain, at Lord Lu can's request, waited to 
see the order executed in the way which he judged to be accordant 
with Lord Raglan's meaning. 



70 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 




which the 
Allies pro- 
posed to 
engage 
Liprandi. 



Isolation 
of Bala- 
clava. 



Position of 
Liprandi' s 
infantry at 
this time. 



The Odes- 
sa regi- 
ment be- 
came the 
index of 
the ene- 
my's 
changing 
resolves. 



plain. The ground, however, upon which the Allies 
were thus gathering lay at distances of not less than 
a mile from the gorge of Kadikoi ; and it not only 
resulted, from the last disposition of the cavalry, that 
the small body under Sir Colin Campbell which de- 
fended the approach to Balaclava was left for the 
moment uncovered, but that (by reason of the period 
required for the transmission of a fresh order, and for 
countermarching our squadrons) this state of isolation 
might continue some time, in despite of all Lord 
Eaglan could do. 

On the other hand, the position of Liprandi was 
this : With his victorious infantry and artillery dis- 
posed near the captured redoubts, he occupied a 
slightly curved line, which began at Kamara, and 
extended thence westward by Canrobert's Hill and 
the Causeway Heights, till it reached a point some- 
what in advance of the Arabtabia. 

The four Odessa battalions, posted near this Arab- 
tabia or Number Three Eedoubt, marked the limit 
of the venture which the Eussian Commander was 
assigning to his infantry in the direction of the Allied 
camps. Indeed we shall see that this Odessa regi- 
ment, for the rest of the day, was a faithful and 
sensitive index of the enemy's intent, mounting guard 
over the site of the Arabtabia, so long as the Allies 
were yet distant, falling back when our cavalry 
seemed going to attack it, and countermarching at 
once to the old ground when Liprandi saw that the 
French and the English Commanders were inclined 
to acquiesce in his conquest. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



71 



The Eussian cavalry, supported by its attendant CHAP, 
batteries, was drawn up across the North Valley, with ^-^—s 
its left resting on the lowest slopes of the Causeway ^° e sl ^. of 



sian cav- 



il eights, and its right on the Feclioukine Hills. g£ 

Nor was Liprandi's little army the only force with Jabrokrit- 
which the Allies would now have to cope, for Jabrok- force, 
ritsky, having descended from the Mackenzie Heights, 
was debouching from the Tractir road, and preparing 
to take up a position on the slopes of the Fedioukine 
Hills. 

These Eussian forces had no pretension to match Ail these 
themselves against the troops which the Allies on forces 
the Chersonese could, sooner or later, send down the time 
for the relief of Balaclava ; but, on the other hand, the^ttack 
it was certain that a long time must elapse before fanSy. 
the infantry despatched from the upland could be 
brought into action against the assailants of Balacla- 
va; and the configuration of the ground was such, 
that every French or English battalion engaged in its 
descent from the Chersonese could be, all the while, 
seen by the enemy. Liprandi, therefore, could act at Theperiod 

of licence 

his ease ; and it was for no trifling space of time that thus en- 
this privileged security lasted. He perhaps under- Liprandi. 
reckoned the probable duration of the licence which 
he thus might enjoy ; but the actual result was, that 
from the seizure of Canrobert's Hill to the moment 
when the Allies were ready to come into action, there 
elapsed a period of some three hours.'" 



* Canrobert's Hill is stated to have been taken at 7.30, and it was 
half-past ten before the Allies had any of their infantry reinforcements 
so far in advance as to be ready to undertake an attack. 



72 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. So, although the moment might come when, by the 
» — ^-1— ' nearer approach of the Allies marching down from the 
upland, Liprandi would be reduced to the defensive, 
or else compelled to retire, yet, for the time, the Eus- 
sian General was not only secure against the contin- 
gency of being attacked by infantry, but also had such 
prey within reach as might tempt him to become the 
assailant. 

The forces The arrival of Jabrokritsky, now debouching from 
threaten- Tractir, entitled Liprandi to consider that troops 
ciava. a which had come thus near were a present accession 
of strength ; and, taken altogether, the Eussian 
troops actually under Liprandi, or near enough now 
to co-operate with him, were a force complete in 
Their all arms, and numbering, as we saw, some 25,000 
strength. meR w ^ g Uns> Yet (now that our cavalry 

had been withdrawn to the foot of the Chersonese), 
The forces the only field force with which Sir Colin Campbell 
be forth- stood ready to oppose all these Eussian troops in 
p^sedTo" front of Kadikoi was a single battery of field-pieces, 
400 men of the 93d Highlanders, commanded by 
Colonel Ainslie,* 100 invalids under Colonel Daveney, 
who had been sent down to Balaclava for embark- 
ation ; and, besides, two battalions of Turks, not 
hitherto carried away by the ebb of the Mussulman 
people. 

* Only six companies of the regiment were at first available for this 
service in front of Kadikoi ; the two remaining companies of the bat- 
talion being on duty, under the command of Major Gordon, in the inner 
line of defence. Major Gordon, however, with the force under his 
orders, rejoined the main body of the battalion before the moment of its 
encounter with the Russian cavalry. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



73 



Liprandi did not seize the occasion. He, perhaps, CHAP 

had failed to divine the extreme weakness of the « — J- — » 

little gathering which undertook to defend the gorge determU 8 
of Kadikoi; but, be that as it may, he attempted 

no attack with his infantry upon the approaches of i™ 1 ^: 12 * 

Balaclava. For a long time, he remained in a state occaslon - 

of inaction ; but at length when his period of licence of trying a 

was approaching its close, he resorted to that singular with his 

venture with his cavalry of which we shall now have cavalry ' 
to speak. 



74 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAPTER V. 



CHAP. Some of our countrymen have imagined that this 
1 — ^ — ' enterprise of Liprandfs cavalry was a real attempt 
sdgn ^Tth on tne P art °f the enemy to possess himself of Bala- 
was C re- thlS c l ava J but the Russians declare that the object really 
sorted to. contemplated was only that of ruining a park of artil- 
lery believed to be near Kadikoi ;* and, judging from 
the apparently hesitating nature of the movement, as 
well as from the fact of its having had no support 
from the infantry, there would seem to be ground for 
believing that some minor purpose of the kind in- 
dicated by the Russians was the one really enter- 
tained. The Russian cavalry had been brought into 
discredit by submitting to be null at the battle of 
the Alma ; and it seems not unlikely that expiation 
of former shortcomings may have been one of the 
objects in view. 

The ad- Be this as it may, General Ryjoff with the main 

of the body of the Russian cavalry, and supported by field- 
Russian 

eavairy. batteries, began to move up the north V alley, t 

* Todleben. 

+ With respect to the numerical strength of this great body of 
cavalry, see post, p. 76. According to General Todleben, it comprised 
2300 horsemen, being fourteen squadrons of hussars and nine sotnias of 
Cossack, p. 387, 393-94. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



75 



The 93d Highlanders, now augmented to a strength CHAP, 
of about 550 by the accession of the two companies < — ^ — > 
under Gordon, were drawn up in line, two deep, upon Cell's " 
that rising ground in front of the village of Kadi- for 
koi which was afterwards called the 'Dunrobin' or defending 

the ap- 

' Sutherland' Hillock. Tower of the Coldstream, and E™? 1 ..^ 

7 Kadikoi. 

Verschoyle,"* another young officer of the Guards, 
chancing to be in Balaclava this morning with some 
thirty or forty men, had seized the occasion for show- 
ing the warlike qualities of energy, high spirit, and 
prompt judgment ; for they gathered their people 
together, brought them up to the front, ranged them 
quickly along with the Highlanders, and in this way 
brought Campbell a small accession of strength to • 
eke out his scant means of defence.t The hundred 
invalids, under Colonel Daveney, were drawn up on 
the left of the 93d.J On either flank of the scanty 
body of British infantry thus posted, there stood a 
battalion of Turks. § Campbell's means of defence 
were materially aided by Barker's field-pieces, already 
in battery upon convenient ground near the hillock, 
as well as by a portion of the batteries constituting 
the inner line of defence, and especially, it seems, by 

* Hamilton, I hear, was one of the officers who took part in this 
volunteered service. — Note to 2d Edition. 

t I am indebted solely to Colonel (now Sir Anthony) Sterling's very 
valuable MS. letters for the knowledge of the service thus rendered. 

% Campbell's despatch says the invalids were drawn up ' in support ;' 
but I have reason for thinking that the statement in the text is accurate. 

§ This account of the disposition made by Sir Colin Campbell may 
seem to differ in some minute particulars from his published despatch ; 
but there are matters on which the testimony of a subordinate officer is 
more conclusive than the report of his chief. 



76 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



Campbell 
withdrew 
his men to 
the foot of 
the hil- 
lock, and 
caused 
them to 
lie down. 



Detached 
body of 
Russian 
horse ad- 
vancing 
towards 
the gorge 
of Kadi- 
koi. 

Camp- 
bell's sol- 
diers again 
crown the 
hillock. 



a battery of two heavy guns under the command of 
Lieutenant Wolf of the Eoyal Artillery/' 5 " 

The advance of the Eussians soon brought their 
artillery to a ground within rage of Campbell's small 
force ; and, two of the Highlanders, besides some of 
the Turks, being wounded by the fire then opened, 
Campbell sought to give his men shelter. He there- 
fore moved them back to the foot of the hillock which 
their ranks had hitherto crowned, and caused them 
there to lie down. Preparing for such en eventuality 
as that of the gorge being forced, he despatched 
Colonel Sterling to Balaclava with orders to apprise 
the commander of the frigate t which lay in the har- 
bour of the pending attack. 

Meanwhile the Russian cavalry continued to 
advance up the North Valley ; but four squadrons 
detached themselves from the mass, and came shap- 
ing their way for the gorge of Kadikoi — the ground 
Campbell stood to defend.J When these horsemen 
were within about a thousand yards of him, Campbell 
gave a brisk order to his little body of foot, directing 
them at once to advance, and again crown the top of 
the hillock. This was done at the instant by the 

* If the battery doing this service formed part of the ' inner line of 
' defence,' it must have been one manned by the Eoyal Marine Artillery. 
—Note to 2d Edition. 

f So ordered by Campbell, but the Wasp was a corvette. As to the 
ships at this time in the harbour, see Note X. of Appendix.' — Note to 
2d Edition. 

J According to Todleben, the force must have been vastly more than 
400 strong — consisting, he says, of nine squadrons, partly belonging to 
the regiment called the ' Saxe- Weimar' Hussars, and partly made up 
of Cossacks ; but I accept Campbell's estimate of the force, and he puts 
it at 400. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



77 



Highland battalion and the few score of English sol- CHAP, 
diers who had come up to range alongside it. The « — J- — • 
troops did not throw themselves into a hollow square 
(as is usual in preparing for cavalry), but simply 
formed line two deep. On this slender array all was 
destined to rest ; for the two battalions of Turks 
which had hitherto flanked the Queen's troops were 
by this time without cohesion. It would seem that 
the disintegration of the Mussulman force had begun 
at the moment when Campbell withdrew his line 
to the foot of the hillock, and was completed, some 
few instants later, upon the evident approach of the 
Kussian cavalry. At all events, these two battalions 
of Turks were now dissolved or dissolving. For the 
most part, both officers and men turned and fled, Flight of 
making straight as they could for the port, and they 
cried, as they went, Ship ! ship ! ship ! 

By this defection in presence of the enemy's ad- Position of 

. Campbell 

vancing cavalry, Campbell was suddenly shorn of after the 
two -thirds of the numerical strength engaged in thei*urL. 
defending the gorge ; and the few hundred British 
soldiers who had hitherto constituted but a fraction 
of his force were now almost all that remained to 
him upon the hillock in front of Kadikoi.'" Whilst 
he waited the movements of an enemy who was 
altogether some 25,000 strong, he could not help 
seeing how much was now made to depend upon 

* I say almost, because there were men among the Turks who man- 
fully stood their ground. It would be a great error to question the 
courage of the fugitives. The one bane of the Turkish forces is the 
want of officers to whom the men can look up. Without that ingredi- 
ent cohesion is apt to fail, however brave men may be. 



78 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 




His deter- 
mination 
to impart 
to the 93d 
the grav- 
ity of the 
occasion. 

His words 
to the 
men. 

Their an- 
swer to his 
appeal. 

Continued 
advance 
of the four 
Russian 
squad- 
rons. 



Campbell 
wielding 
his 93d. 



the steadfastness of the few hundred men who re- 
mained with him still on the hillock. He had, how- 
ever, so great a confidence in his Highlanders that 
he judged he could safely impart to them the grav- 
ity of the occasion. He rode down the line, and 
said : ' Eemember there is no retreat from here, 
i men ! You must die where you stand ! '* The 
men cheerily answered his appeal saying, c Ay, ay, 
* Sir Colin; well do that/t 

It was whilst our men were still lying on their 
faces at the foot of the hillock that the four Eussian 
squadrons began their advance ; and it is said that the 
mission of this detached force was to try to seize one 
of the batteries connected with the inner line of de- 
fence. The horsemen, it seems, rode on, not expect- 
ing a combat with infantry ; when suddenly they saw 
the slender line of the Highlanders springing up to 
the top of the hillock. Not unnaturally the Eussian 
horsemen imagined that they were falling into some 
ambush ; \ and on the other hand, the men of the 
93d, with a wild impetuosity which was character- 
istic of the battalion as then constituted, showed a 
mind to rush forward as though undertaking to charge 
and exterminate cavalry in the open plain ; but in a 
moment Sir Colin was heard crying fiercely, 6 Ninety- 
e third ! Ninety-third ! damn all that eagerness ! ' and 
the angry voice of the old soldier quickly steadied the 
line. The Eussian squadrons had come within long 

* These words were heard by Captain (now Major) Burroughs, the 
officer then in command of the 6th compan} 7- of the 93d. 
t And these. 

$ Communications from the Eussian officers to ours. 



5* 



which, the Russian Cavalry is advancing. His ord< 
the text. 

Between the Redoubts 5 and 6, and nearly up< 
the Map by the letter H, there was a plantatio 
indicated in the Official surveys. 

The positions of General Canrobert, and of Lor) 
crest in front of the French " Corps of Observation.' 



GENERAL PLAN OF T 1 

BATTLE OF BALA 

ADVANCE OF THE RUSSIAN C 



EXPLANATION OF SIC 



The site of the English Light Cavalry Gam} 
The site of the. English Heavy Cavalry Cam 




At the time here indicated the. Russians had 
1, 2, 3, and 4, and ushiHish. d themselves in the 
No. 4 Redoubt unoccupied. Jabrokritsky with 
talions, 4 Squadrons, and 14 GunB is represented 
Fedioukine Hills ; but he had barely taken up his j 
indicated. 

The four Squadron* dospiitrlu'd against Sit- 
midst of their encounter with the 93rd I li>;hlaiid< 
Troops are retreating in emmi.<i<m upon Balaclava. 

Under the command of General Ryjoff, the m 
Cavalry having already advanced *nmc way up the 
left, and passing over the Causeway Height toward 
Cavalry Camp. 

Scarlett with six Squadrons of Heavy Dragoon 
ground in front of Kadikoi, and is already close ' 
which the Russian Cavalry is advancing. His ord 
the text. 

Between the Redoubts 5 and fi, and nearly upi 
the Map by the letter H, there was a plantatio 
indicated in the Official surveys. 

The positions of General Canrohert, and of Lon 
crest in front of the French " Corps of Observation.] 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



79 



musketry range. The Highlanders and the men along- CHAP, 

side them delivered their fire ; and although they - — ^ — • 

emptied no saddles, they wounded some horses and ^mltheir 

men.* The horsemen thus met abandoned at once lme - 

Its effect. 

their advance upon Campbell's front, and wheeled to Theaiter- 

their left as though undertaking to turn his right flank, ^ent ^" 

Sir Colin turned to his aide-de-camp, and — speaking ^squad- 

of the officer who led the Eussian squadrons — said, rons - 
' Shadwell ! that man understands his business/ To 

meet his assailant's change of direction, Campbell £ a ™P" 

caused the grenadier company of the 93d, under counter- 

manosu- 

Captain Eoss, to bring the left shoulder forward, and vre. 
show a front towards the north-east. 

Stopped at once by this ready manoeuvre, and the its effect. 

J2 • Retreat of 

nre that it brought on their flank, the horsemen the horse- 
wheeled again to their left, and retreated. They re- 
treated together, but not in good order ; and the fire 
of our artillery increased their confusion. 

Thus was easily brought to an end the advance 
of those 400 horsemen who had found themselves, 
during a moment, in the front of a Highland bat- 
talion. Springing out of no foregone design against Feebleness 
Campbells infantry, the attack fell so short that it charge un- 
scarcely gave any example of what might be attempted by these 
by horsemen against a body of foot drawn up in line, squadrons, 
and two deep. The Queen's troops arrayed on the 
hillock were able, indeed, to prove their mettle ; but The real 

. . nature of 

the occasion they found was not such a one as is the trial 

. r» i T i sustained 

given to infantry by a resolute onslaught of horse, by the 

The trial they had to pass through on this morning Queen s 

* Communications from the Russian officers to ours. 



80 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, of the 25th of October was not one directly resulting 
* — ^ — - from any kind of sharp combat, but still it was a 
form P edup tr i a l i m P°sed upon them by the hitherto adverse 
hillock tenor of the engagement, and, in that sense, by 
stress of battle. Without being at all formidable 
in itself, the advance of the four Russian squadrons 
marked what might well seem at the moment to 
be an ugly, if not desperate crisis in the defence 
of the English seaport. Few or none, at the time, 
could have had safe grounds for believing that, 
before the arrival of succours sent down from the 
upland, Liprandi would be all at once stayed in 1 is 
career of victory ; and in the judgment of those, if 
any there were, who suffered themselves to grow 
thoughtful, the whole power of our people in the 
plain and the port of Balaclava must have seemed to 
be in jeopardy ; for not only had the enemy over- 
mastered the outer line of defence, and triumphantly 
broken in through it, but also, having a weight of 
numbers which, for the moment, stood as that of an 
army to a regiment, he already had made bold to be 
driving his cavalry at the very heart of the English 
resources, when the Turkish battalions — troops con- 
stituting two-thirds of that small and last body of 
foot with which Campbell yet sought to withstand his 
assailant — dissolved all at once into a horde of fugi- 
tives thronging down in despair to the port. If, in 
such a condition of things, some few hundreds of in- 
fantry men stood shoulder to shoulder in line, con- 
fronting the victor upon open ground, and maintaining' 
from first to last, their composure, their cheerfulness, 
nay, even their soldierly mirth, they proved themselves 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



81 



by a test which was other than that of sharp combat, CHAP, 
but hardly, perhaps, less trying. > — ^ — ' 
And the Highlanders whilst in this joyous mood The new 
were not without a subject of merriment ; for they countered 
saw how the Turks in their flight met a new and Tur^in 
terrible foe. There came out from the camp of the tight. 
Highland regiment a stalwart and angry Scotch wife, 
with an uplifted stick in her hand ; and then, if ever 
in history, the fortunes of Islam waned low beneath 
the manifest ascendant of the Cross ; for the blows 
dealt by this Christian woman fell thick on the backs 
of the Faithful. She believed, it seems, that, besides 
being guilty of running away, the Turks meant to 
pillage her camp ; and the blows she delivered were 
not mere expressions of scorn, but actual and fierce 
punishment. In one instance, she laid hold of a 
strong-looking, burly Turk, and held him fast until 
she had beaten him for some time, and seemingly with 
great fury. She also applied much invective. Not- 
withstanding all graver claims upon their attention, 
the men of the 93d were able to witness this incident. 
It mightily pleased and amused them. It amuses men 
still to remember that the Osmanlis, flying from danger 
and yearning after blissful repose, should have chosen a 
line of retreat where this pitiless dame mounted guard."" 

* She was a very powerful woman. In later years — I do not know 
the origin of the appellation — she used to be known in the regiment by 
the name of the ' Kokona.' — End of Note to First Edition. Mr Henry 
Stanley has now kindly enabled me to give the meaning of the word. 
It is a modern Greek word, KOKava, signifying ' Lady ' or * Madam,' and 
is applied by Turks to Christian ladies. It is the very word by which 
— in deprecation of her wrath — an assaulted Turk would have been 
likely to address the lady. — Note to Second Edition. 

VOL. IV. F 



82 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CHAP. If a man has to hear that in the open forenoon of 
- — an October day a body of Russian horse which num- 
bered itself by thousands could come wandering into 
the precincts* of the English camp without exciting 
early attention on the part of our cavalry people, he 
ought to know what was the cause which made such 
an incident possible. 

Towards the west of the Balaclava plain, the 
ground was so undulating, and the view of it here 
and there so obstructed by orchards or vineyards, that 
although an observer well placed would be able to 
descry the advance of any enemy's force long, long 
before it could be close at hand, yet the near approach 
of even great bodies of troops might be hidden from 
the mind of a general who contented himself with the 
knowledge that was to be got from low ground. It 
may be easily imagined that, in the existing condition 
of things, our cavalry generals could not venture to 
separate themselves from* their troops by even those 
slight distances which divided the low ground from 
Want of neighbouring heights; but then also they failed to 
ruents for charge others with the duty of maintaining a watch- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



83 



ful look-out from any of the commanding knolls and CHAP, 
ridges which featured the landscape around them; ^-^—s 
and from this single omission there well might come th^ook- 
two broods of error — the first brood consisting of out - 
' surprises/ like the one which gave rise to this com- 
ment — the other brood comprising those ugly miscon- 
structions which must always be likely to occur where 
he who sends orders can survey the whole field, and 
he who would try to obey them has only a circum- 
scribed view. 



The main body of the Kussian cavalry, under the Advance 
orders of General RyjofF, moved briskly up the North main body 
Valley, having with it some 32 pieces of field-artillery; Russian 
and as yet, the force did not bend southward (as the cavaliy * 
four detached squadrons had done), but pushed on 
so far up towards the west (without being assailed by 
our cavalry), that at length it incurred two shots, both 
discharged from the line of batteries which fringed 
the edge of the Chersonese. Checked apparently by 
this fire, the Kussian cavalry, which had previously 
seemed to be one immense column, now showed it- 
self to consist of two distinct masses, and during 
some moments it seemed disposed to fall back ; but its change 
presently, the whole force, acting closely together, tion. 
wheeled obliquely aside towards the line of the Wor- 
onzoff road, and began to cross over the Causeway 
Heights, as though minded to invade the South 
Valley, or else, at the least, to survey it. Lord 
Cardigan's brigade had just been moved to a posi- 
tion more advanced than before, and it now fronted 



84 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, towards the east. Therefore, although the configu- 
v— ^i— -> ration of the ground was such as to keep General 
KyjofF in ignorance of what he had on his flank, 
yet, when he thus passed over the heights, he was 
moving (obliquely) across the front of our Light 
Cavalry. 

So far as I have heard, there is no ground at all for 
believing that, when the Eussian horse thus wheeled 
and faced to the south, it had yet had a glimpse of 
the foe with which, in hard fight, it was destined to be 
its sudden presently striving ; but as soon as the foremost horse- 
ofT^eat men of the leading column had moved up to the top 
mty. rtU of the ridge, they all at once found that a great occa- 
sion was come. 

The march Long before the flight of the Turkish battalions in 
eight the gorge of Kadikoi, Lord Eaglan's sure glance had 
of Heavy 3 enabled him to detect their unstable condition ; and 
wMchTad ne na( i> therefore, sent an order directing that eight 
under ent squadrons of Heavy Dragoons should be moved down 
towards t° support them. Lord Lucan had entrusted the task 
preaches *° Brigadier-General Scarlett, the officer who com- 
of_Kadi- manded our Heavy Brigade ; and Scarlett was in the 
act of executing Lord Eaglans order, when the Eus- 
sian cavalry, as we have just been seeing, turned 
away from the valley and moved up over the sum- 
mit of the Causeway ridge. Having with him the 
5 th Dragoon Guards, the Scots Greys, and the In- 
niskilling Dragoons — regiments numbering altogether 
six squadrons — and having, besides, provided that to 
make up the 'eight/ two squadrons of the 4th 
Dragoon Guards should follow him, Scarlett was 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



85 



marching along the South Valley, and making his C H A P. 
way towards the east, with the Causeway Heights - — ^—^ 
on his left. 

For the purpose of seeing how these troops were Cause 
brought into action, the order of march should be duced 

•, mi . i • ii Scarlett to 

known, ine movement being regarded as a move- dispense 
ment within our own lines, and one therefore proceed- SJtions." 
ing through ground in the unchallenged dominion of the 
English, was not conducted with the military precau- 
tions which would have been otherwise judged neces- 
sary, and no horsemen covered the march by moving 
along the top of the Causeway ridge. Scarlett did 
not apparently entertain an idea that Kussian cavalry 
could come so high up the North Valley as the ' Num- 
'ber Five' Eedoubt, and manoeuvre on the ground 
which it reached, without bringing our Light Cavalry 
down on it."* Therefore no special directions were 
thought to be needed for this little march — a march 



* This sketch — which, however, is not offered as a plan indicating 
the actual positions of the respective forces — may aid the comprehen- 
sion of the text. 




No. 5 Eedoubt. 




86 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, through our own camping -ground — and no more 
* — ^— ' elaborate operation was intended than that of mov- 
ing all the three regiments by the same route in open 
The order column of troops. It chanced, however, that in turn- 
ing one of the enclosures which obstructed its path, 
the 1st squadron of the Inniskillings took the right- 
hand side of the obstacle, whilst the other squadron 
passed by the left of it ; and in this way it resulted 
that the movement went on in two columns, the right 
hand column being led by the 1st squadron of the 
Inniskillings, and closed by the 5th Dragoon Guards ; 
whilst the left-hand column was led by the 2d squad- 
ron of the Inniskillings, and closed by the two squad- 
rons of the Scots Greys. Those three last-named 
squadrons were moving in open column of troops, but 
the right-hand column marched by * threes/ * 
The At the moment of the sudden discovery which will 

which had be presently mentioned, the six squadrons thus led 
reached by Scarlett were marching in a direction nearly 
2d squad- parallel with the line of the Causeway ridge, at a 
inniskif- 6 distance of some seven or eight hundred yards from 
thloreys its summit ; and the left-hand column was so shap- 
thne now m S * ts course as to ^ e a^ 6 to skirt the remains of 
tLn^ es * ^ ne Light Brigade camp, and also the lower fence of a 
vineyard there sloping down southward in the eye of 
the sun. The camp had been imperfectly struck ; but 
some tents were yet standing, and the picket-ropes 
had not been removed. 



* General Scarlett's impression was, that all six squadrons were mov- 
ing upon the same line of march, and in open column of troops ; but 
minute inquiry led to the conclusion stated in the text. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



87 



General Scarlett with Elliot, his aide-de-camp, was C H A P. 
on the left of the column formed by the 2d squadron v— ^— ' 
of the Inniskillings and the Scots Greys. Intent upon gcarfett. 
the special duty which had just been assigned to his 
squadrons by Lord Raglan's last order, he was keenly 
bending his sight in the direction of the Highland 
battalion which defended the approaches of Kadikoi, 
when Elliot cast a glance towards the ridge on his Sudden 
left, and saw its top fretted with lances. Another mo- anceof the 
ment and the sky-line was broken by evident squad- cavSryon 
rons of horse. Elliot, young as he was, had yet been *f Scar- k 
inured to war, and he quickly was able to assure g t o n s s dra " 
himself not only that powerful masses of Russian 
cavalry were gathered, and gathering, on the ridge, 
but that they fronted towards the South Valley and 
were looking down almost at right angles upon the 
flank of our marching column. Of course, the aide- 
de-camp instantly directed the eyes of his chief to 
the summit of the ridge on his left. For a moment, 
Scarlett could hardly accept Elliot's conclusion ; but 
in the next instant he recognised the full purport 
of what had happened, and perceived that he was 
marching across the front of a great mass of Russian 
cavalry, which looked down upon the flank of his 
column from a distance of but a few hundred yards, 
and might 1 be expected, of course, to charge down 
on it. This, then, was the occasion which fortune 
had proffered to the Russian cavalry. 

Scarlett's resolve was instantaneous, and his plan Scarlett's 
simple. He meant to form line to his left, and to 
charge with all six of his squadrons. Accordingly 



88 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, he faced his horse's head towards the flank of the 
v— ✓ column, and called out, ' Are you right in front % ' * 
The order The answer was, ' Yes, sir ! ' Then Scarlett gave the 
he gave. W0Y ^ £ CO mmand, ' Left wheel into line ! ' 
< Scarlett's The troops nearest to Scarlett were those which 
'hundred. ' formed the left-hand column — that is, the 2d squad- 
ron of the Inniskillings, which was in front, and the 
two squadrons of the Greys which brought up the 
rear. Those three squadrons were the force which 
constituted 6 Scarlett's three hundred/ 

Scarlett conceived at this time that the 5th Dra- 
goon Guards would form up in prolongation of his 
front on the left of the Greys ; and, to leave a clear 
front for the regiment thus supposed to be coming 
into line, he found it necessary that the ' three hun- 
' dred ' should move some way east of the vineyard 
Ground before commencing their onset. He therefore gave 
thTright. an order to ' take ground to the right/ 
The 5th The 5th Dragoon Guards had not yet so closely 
Guards! 1 approached as to be ready to align with Scarlett's 
c three hundred ; ' and it seems that Elliot, the Brig- 
adier's aide-de-camp, delivered to the regiment an 
order which was regarded as directing it to act in 
support to the Greys. t The position which the 5th 
Dragoon Guards actually took up was on the left 
rear of the Greys. On the right of the 5th Dra- 
goon Guards, but divided from it by a considerable 

* This was a very apt question ; for, as we shall afterwards see, some 
portions of the Heavy Brigade were marching 4 left in front.' 

f I believe General Scarlett has no recollection of having sent this 
order ; but the proof of the words given in the text seems irresistibly 


















it 


> 


mm 



BATTLE OF BALACLAVA, 



^ Shewing the Order in which fh < Six 

J, rP.J : Squadrons with Gov} Scarlett war 

rt 3P | inarching when the approach of the 

Y% V i Russian Cava It r was -first observed, . 



Site, of 
light Cavalry 
Camp. 



; . ' YP ' YP I ~S<v,r/sJj, 

^ to £} 

Marching m -open r^i^ s - 
Column: of 'Troops. 



■ '/'Dragoon Guards 
Marching hy threes 



1 st Squadron of 
th&lnniskitttngs 
marching hy threes. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



89 



interval, there stood the 1st squadron of the In- CHAP. 

VI 

niskillings. - — ^— ' 

The 4th Dragoon Guards and the Eoyals were The 4th 
approaching ; so altogether, besides the first line, there Guards* 1 
were seven squadrons which might ultimately take Royatfap- 
part in the conflict, though not until after the mo- P roachiD s- 
ment when the foremost ' three hundred ? would be 
already engaged. 

The embarrassment of determining whether he will Scarlett's 
direct, or whether he will lead, is one which very 
commonly besets the mind of a cavalry general who 
commands several regiments just about to engage in 
a conflict with powerful adversaries ; but it pressed 
upon Scarlett with a somewhat unusual severity ; for 
he had no time to be delegating authority, or giving 
effective instructions for the guidance of his supports ; 
and, in one point of view, it might be bold to take it 
for granted that a general in command of several 
squadrons could be warranted in leaving a large pro- 
portion of them to come into the fight their own 
way ; but then, on the other hand, our troops were 
young, were new to battle ; and, it being determined 
that a very scant number of them were to be led on 
— and that, too, uphill — against a vast mass of cav- 
alry which reckoned itself by thousands, there was 
ground for believing that they might need the exam- 
ple of a general officer, not for the purpose of mere 
encouragement, but in order to put them above all 
doubt and question in regard to their true path of 
duty. 

In such a dilemma, shall a man be the Leader or 



90 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, the General % He cannot be both. Shall he strive 
VI 

> — ^— < to retain the control over all his troops, as does an in- 
fantry General sending orders this way and that % Or 
rather, for the sake of leading his first line, shall he 
abandon for the moment his direct authority over the 
rest, and content himself with that primitive act of 
generalship which is performed by showing the way % 

Hisdeci- The soundness of Scarlett's decision may fairly be 

sion. . J *> 

questioned ;* but he chose as chose Lord Uxbridge in 
the last of the battles against the great Napoleon ; t) 
nay, he chose as did Murat himself, for when tha 
great cavalry chief was a king and a commander of 
mighty numbers, he still used to charge in person, and 
to charge at the head of his squadrons. 
LordLu- And now, all at once, by the arrival of his Divi- 

can. The 

part taken sional General, Scarlett found himself relieved from 
after hear- any anxiety occasioned by his decision. It seems 
advance of that, after having despatched Scarlett and his Heavy 
siancav- Dragoons on the mission assigned to them by the 
ahy ' Commander-in-Chief, Lord Lucan had been apprised 
by one of Lord Kaglan's aides-de-camp of the enemy's 
advance up the valley with a large body of cavalry • 
and that presently, upon having his glance directed 

* For the reason adverted to in the preceding paragraph. 

f Our cavalry Generals have very commonly adopted this way of per- 
forming their duty ; but the decision of Lord Uxbridge (afterwards the 
Marquess of Anglesea) is a specially convenient example of the dilemma 
referred to in the text ; for on the one hand his personal leadership 
of the first line resulted in a charge of surpassing splendour ; but then 
also great losses followed, because it was found that practically, his an. 
terior directions to the supports did not seem applicable a few moments 
later, and at all events, were not obeyed in a manner accordant with 
Lord Uxbridge's design. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



91 



to the right quarter, he himself had not only descried C H A P, 
KyjofFs masses of horse, but had been able to see that « — ^— * 
a portion of them was bending southward across the 
Causeway ridge. Thereupon, it appears, he had first 
given his parting instructions to Lord Cardigan, the 
commander of the Light Brigade, and had then rid- 
den off at speed in the track of Scarlett's left column. 
When, upon overtaking the squadrons, he found them 
moving in column of troops with their left flank towards 
the enemy, he believed that this operation (though in 
reality, perhaps, it had resulted from Scarlett's second 
order to take ground to the right) was a continuance 
of the march towards Kadikoi. He therefore con- 
ceived that, to save time in what he took to be a 
pressing emergency, it was his duty at once, and in 
person, to give such directions to the troops as he 
judged to be needed, without first apprising General 
Scarlett, and conveying the orders through him. Ac- 
cordingly, therefore, by his personal word of command, 
he directed the troops to wheel into line ; * and it 
seems that he was heard and obeyed by the Greys, 
but not by the Inniskillings ; for that last regiment 
received no orders except those which came from the 
lips of General Scarlett. It is evident that, at such 
a time, any clashing of the words of command which 

* Indeed, if Lord Lucan's impression be accurate, he delivered in 
succession the same three orders that were given by Scarlett — i.e., 
orders to wheel into line, to take ground to the right, and (for the 
second time) to wheel into line. In my judgment, any dispute as to 
which of the two generals was the first to give the orders would be too 
trivial to deserve public attention ; but if there be a military reader 
who thinks otherwise, he will probably perceive that the truth can be 
deduced from the facts stated in the text. 



92 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, proceeded from the two generals might have been 
• — ^— ' dangerous ; but in their actual result, Lord Lucan s 

separate though concurring orders wrought little or 

no confusion. 

Meeting Hitherto, the divisional commander and his briga- 
Lord Lu- dier had not come in sight of one another : but whilst 
General Scarlett (after having once wheeled, and then taken 
Scarlett. g rounc [ to ^ Q right) was again giving orders to 
wheel a second time, into line, Lord Lucan rode up 
to him ; and, in the face of the enemy's masses of 
horse then closely impending over them, the General 
of the division and the General of brigade found 
moments enough for the exchange of a few rapid 
The com- words. According to General Scarlett's recollection 

tions be- 

of what passed, he explained why it was that, after 
them! first wheeling into line, he had found it necessary to 
take ground to his right, and received an assurance 
that his intended attack would be supported by Lord 
Lucan with other troops. 

Lord Lucan, indeed, believes that, in expressing 
his wish to have the charge executed, he spoke 
as though giving an order which had originated 
with himself, and that he said to his Brigadier : — 
* General Scarlett, take these four squadrons ' — the 
four squadrons of the Greys and the Inniskillings — 
' and at once attack the column of the enemy; ' * but 
if he used words of command where words of mere 
sanction were what the occasion required, it seems 
probable that he ended the conversation with a more 



* What Lord Lucan took to be * four ' were in reality three squad- 
rons. See ante, p. 88. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



93 



appropriate phrase, saying simply to Scarlett : — CHAP, 

' Now, then, do as you like.' Whatever were the < ^El_ > 

words interchanged, they at all events proved that 
Scarlett's determination to lead an immediate charge 
against the enemy's cavalry had the sanction of his 
divisional commander. 

Of course, it must be well understood that the LordLu- 
attack we shall have to speak of took place under in the 
Lord Lucan s actual and personal authority. Hold- 
ing command over the whole division of which the 
Heavy Dragoons formed a part, he had come up so 
early as to have ample time for preventing the charge 
if he had thought fit to do so ; and as it happened 
that, far from preventing, he eagerly sanctioned, the 
charge, nay, personally helped on the preparations for 
the measure, and undertook to support it by fresh 
troops — he made himself in the fullest sense respon- 
sible for the operation, and became, in all fairness, 
entitled to a corresponding share of any merit there 
was in the design. He either ordered or sanctioned 
the charge ; and the question, c Who led it % 7 will not 
be brought into dispute. 

When the operation of wheeling a second time into Positions 
line had been brought to completion by the Innis- squadrons 
killings and the Greys, our six squadrons ranged thus : moment 
In first line there stood the second squadron of the Scarlett's 
Inniskillings, with the Greys on their left. In second charge - 
line the first squadron of the Inniskillings was on the 
right rear of the other Inniskilling squadron ; and on 
its left there was the 5th Dragoon Guards, forming 
up in left rear of the Greys. 



94 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. The whole force thus ranged or ranging was be- 
• — ^— ' tween 500 and 600 strong; and the three squadrons 
in front which had first to encounter alone the whole 
of the enemy's masses, numbered something less than 
300. 



The num- By the concurring opinions of Lord Lucan and of 

bersofthe . 

Russian many French officers, including General Canrobert, 
confront- and also, I believe, General Morris, the mass of 
left. ° ar Eussian cavalry preparing to descend upon these 300 
dragoons was estimated as amounting, at the least, to 
3500 men; and (unless it be understood that Jerop- 
kine's six squadrons of Lancers were in another part 
of the field, or that the horsemen receding from the 
fire of the 93d Highlanders had not rejoined the 
main body) it would result from even the official 
acknowledgment of the Russians that this mass of 
horse was some 3000 strong/" Even supposing the 
force to have comprised but two-thirds of that num- 
ber — and I cannot allow myself to state it at more 
than about 2000 — the column was still one of no 
common weight and massiveness. It need hardly be 
said that the same numerals which import but a 
moderate strength, if applied to foot-soldiers, are 
many times more potent when used for the reckoning 
of cavalry. Our island people rarely cast their eyes 
upon such a spectacle as that of cavalry in mass ; and 
yet, without having done so, they can hardly conceive 

* Strictly, 2900. For the particulars of this force, and for inquny 
as to the question whether the two exceptions suggested by the above 
parenthesis should or should not be made, see note in the Appendix. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



95 



the sense of weight that is laid upon the mind of a CHAP, 
man who looks up the slope of a hill at a distance of < — Zi— ' 
a few hundred yards, and sees there a column of 
horse — even if it were but 2000 strong — close 
gathered in oblong or square. 

And that — so far as concerned its power of man- Deliberate 
ceuvring — this great body of horse was in a high executed 
state of efficiency, it soon gave proof; for when the ^the Uvre 
squadrons had gathered on the summit of the ridge, c^Xy. 
their leader for some reason determined that he 
ought to take ground to his left, and the change was 
effected with a briskness and precision which wrung 
admiration from some of our best cavalry officers. 

So soon as the column had taken all the ground 
that was thought to be needed, it fronted once more 
to the English. Then presently, at the sound of the its ad- 
trumpet, this huge mass of horsemen, deep -charged down the 
with the weight of its thousands, began to descend sl ° pe ' 
the hillside. 

Making straight for the ground where our scanty 
three hundred were ranging, and being presently 
brought to the trot, it came on at a well-governed 
speed, swelling broader and broader each instant, yet 
disclosing its depths more and more. In one of its 
aspects, the descending of this thicket of horsemen 
was like what may be imagined of a sudden yet 
natural displacement of the earth's surface; for to 
those who gazed from afar the dusky mass they saw 
moving showed acreage rather than numbers. 

All this while, the string of the 300 red-coats were 
forming Scarlett's slender first line in the valley be- 



96 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, neath, and they seemed to be playing parade. At 
— ^— * the moment I speak of, the troop officers of the Greys 
were still facing their men ; and their drill rules, it 
seems, had declared that they must continue to do so 
till the major of the regiment should at length bring 
them round by giving the order, ' Eyes right ! ' Not 
yet would the Greys consent to be disturbed in their 
ceremonies by the descending column. 

It was with seeming confidence that Scarlett sat 
eyeing the approach of the Eussian mass, whilst the 
three squadrons ranging behind him went composedly 
on with the work of dressing and re-dressing their 
front ; yet the moment seemed near when, from the 
great depth of the column and the incline of the 
ground, the front ranks of the Russians would have 
less to dread from their foe than from the weight of 
their own troops behind them ; and unless the descent 
of the column should be presently stayed, even the 
enemy himself (though by chance his foremost squad- 
rons should falter) might hardly have any choice left 
but to come sweeping down like a torrent, and over- 
whelming all mortal resistance. 
The Rus- But before the moment had come when the enemy, 
airy slack- whether liking it or not, would find himself con- 
pacef and demned to charge home, he began, as it seemed, to 
lengt^to* falter - He slackened the pace. He still slackened 
a halt. — hj s trumpets were sounding — he slackened, and 

came to a halt. 
Surmise as Our cavalry-men, so far as I know, have failed to 
cause of hit on any solution of what they regard as a seem- 
ingly enormous mistake on the part of General 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



97 



Ryjoff ; and the Russians, not caring to dwell on the CHAP, 
story of their conflict with our Heavy Dragoons, have < — r ~ « 
never thrown light on the question. It, however, 
seems likely that a commander leading down his 
massed thousands with design to attack may have 
judged that he was met by a formidable obstacle 
when he saw extending before him a camp imper- 
fectly struck,, where some of the tents were yet 
standing and where also some horses were picketed.* 
If such was General RyjofFs apprehension, he may 
well have been strengthened in it by observing the 
deliberately ceremonious preparations of the scanty 
red squadrons below : because he would be led to 
infer that their apparent sense of security must be 
based on knowledge of the ground in their front, and 
the hindrances with which it was strewed. 

Or, again, it may be that, from the first, the enemy 
had intended to halt at what he judged a fit dis- 
tance, for the purpose of executing and perfecting the 
manoeuvre which must now be described. 

Either whilst the mass was descending, or else as Deploy- 
soon as it halted, a partial deployment was effected, f ected by 
which brought the force, taken as a whole, into a state sians on 
of formation not new to St Petersburg, though but little f their 
affected elsewhere. In prolongation of the two front column * 
ranks of the column both to the right and to the 
left, two wings or fore-arms were thrown out, and 
this in such way that whilst the trunk — if thus 
one may call it — was a huge weighty mass of great 
depth, the two limbs which grew out from it were 

* Sick horses. 

VOL. IV. G 



98 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, constituted by a formation in line. In this way, the 
• — «^—> appalling effect of great weight was supposed to be 
combined with the advantage which belongs to ex- 
tension of front ; and evidently the designer imagined 
that, by the process of wheeling them, the two de- 
ployed lines might be made puissant engines for 
defence or for counter-attack. By inclining them 
more or less back the arms might be made to cover 
the flanks of the column; whilst, by folding them 
inwards, they might be so wielded as to crush all 
close comers with an easy and pitiless hug. The 
mass which acted in support had a front commen- 
surate with that of the column it followed, but with- 
out any deployment from the flanks. It advanced so 
exactly on the track of the body in front, and soon 
showed so strong a tendency to close upon it, that 
virtually it added its weight to the weight of the 
great mass it followed, without attempting to aid it 
by any independent manoeuvres. So although, whilst 
these horsemen were marching, and even during part 
of the conflict, a space could be seen still existing 
between the first mass and the second, yet, so far as 
concerns their bearing upon the fight, the two columns 
were substantially as one. 

Around the serried masses thus formed there circled 
a number of horsemen in open or skirmishing order. 
Scarlett's When the extension of the Eussian front had de- 
veloped itself, Scarlett failed not, of course, to see 
that, enormously as his thin line of two ranks was 
overweighted by the vast depth of the column before 
him, the extent to which he was outflanked both on 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



99 



his right hand and on his left was hardly less over- CHAP, 
whelming ; but whether he still expected that the 5th ^J^l_^ 
Dragoon Guards would align with the Greys, or whether 
he by this time understood that it would be operating 
on their left rear, he at all events looked trustfully to 
the help that would be brought him by this his own 
regiment as a means of resistance to the forces which 
were outflanking him on his left. Towards his right, 
however, he equally saw the dark squadrons far, far 
overlapping his front ; and, for the checking of these, 
he knew not that he had even so much as one troop 
close at hand, for he supposed at that time that his 
first line included the whole of the Inniskillings. 
Scarlett, therefore, despatched Major Conolly, his bri- 
gade-major, with orders to bring forward one or other 
of the two regiments which had not marched off with 
the rest, and oppose it to the enemy's left. 

It seemed evident -that, for the English, all rational 
hope must depend upon seizing the occasion which 
the enemy's halt was now proffering ; and to the truth 
of this conviction the Divisional General and his Bri- 
gadier were both keenly alive. Lord Lucan, indeed, 
grew so impatient of delay that he more than once 
caused his trumpeter to sound the ' charge but Scar- 
lett and all his people were much busied in preparing ; 
and, so far as I have heard, no attention was awak- 
ened by the sound of the divisional trumpet. 

Though our people saw clearly enough that at all 
hazards, and notwithstanding all disparity of numbers, 
the enemy's impending masses must be attacked by 
Scarlett's scant force, they still had no right to imagine 



100 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, that they could achieve victory, or even ward off disas- 
■ — A-' ter, by means of the kind which a General of Cavalry 
is accustomed to contemplate. When an officer under- 
takes a charge of horse, his accustomed hope is, that 
he will be able to shatter the array of the foe by the 
momentum and impact of his close serried squadrons 
led thundering in at a gallop ; and, indeed, it is a 
main part of his reckoning that the bare dread of the 
shock he thus threatens will break down all resistance 
beforehand. For Scarlett, there could be no such hope. 
The scantiness of his numbers was not of itself a fatal 
bar to the prospect of conquering by impact ; but he 
was so circumstanced as to be obliged to charge uphill 
and over ground much impeded in some places by the 
picket-ropes and other remains of the camp. Nor 
was this the worst. The vast depth of the column 
forbade all prospect of shattering it by a blow ; for 
even though the troopers in front might shrink, and 
incline to give way under the shock of a charge, they 
would be physically prevented from making a step to 
the rear by the massiveness of the squadrons behind 
them. 

But, however desperate the task of Scarlett's three 
hundred dragoons, no one of them seems to have 
questioned that it was right to attack; and, the 
element of doubt being thus altogether excluded, 
they at least had that strength which belongs to 
men acting with a resolute purpose. 

Except in the instances of combats under the walls 
of besieged fortresses, it can rarely occur that armies, 



The great 
numbers 
of military 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



101 



or large portions of armies, are not only so near and CHAP, 
so well placed for the purpose of seeing, but also so « — Zi— ' 
unoccupied with harder tasks as to be able to study g^re 
a combat going on under their eyes ; and still more ^*£® sses 
rare must be the occasions which modern warfare combat - 
allows for seeing a conflict rage without looking 
through a curtain of smoke ; but, besides our Light 
Cavalry Brigade which stood near at hand, there had 
gathered large numbers of military observers — in- 
cluding French, English, and Turks — who, being at 
the edge of the Chersonese upland, were on ground 
so inclined as to be comparable to that from which 
tiers upon tiers of spectators in a Eoman amphitheatre 
used to overlook the arena ; and the ledges of the 
hillside were even indeed of such form as to invite 
men to sit whilst they gazed. The means that people Distinc- 
had oi attaining to clear perceptions were largely m- ours of the 
creased by the difference that there was between the worn by 
colour of theEussian and that of the English squadrons, sians and 
With the exception of a few troops which showed their i£h drf- 
uniform — the pale-blue pelisse and jacket of a hussar g00DS " 
regiment — all the Eussian horsemen, whether hussars, 
or lancers, or Cossacks, whether officers or troopers, 
were enveloped alike in the murky grey outer-coats 
which, by this time, had become familiar to the eye 
of the invaders. The grey was of such a hue that, 
like the grey of many a lake and river, it gathered 
darkness from quantity ; and what people on the 
Chersonese saw moving down to overwhelm our ' three 
hundred/ were two masses having that kind of black- 
ness which belongs to dense clouds charged with storm. 



102 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. The English dragoons, on the other hand, were in 
v— ^i— ✓ their scarlet uniform, and (with the exception of the 
Greys, who had the famed ' bearskins ' for their head- 
gear) they all wore the helmet. The contrast of 
colour between the grey and the red was so strong 
that any even slight intermixture of the opposing 
combatants could be seen from the Chersonese. So 
great had been the desire of the English in those 
days, to purchase ease for the soldier at the ex- 
pense of display, that several portions of our dra- 
goon accoutrements had been discarded. The plumes 
of the helmets had been laid aside, and our men 
rode without their shoulder - scales, without the 
then ridiculed stock, and, moreover, without their 
gauntlets. 

The group Whilst the gazers observed that troop-officers in 
horsemen front of our first line were still facing to the men, 
fectedfn still dressing and re-dressing the ranks, they also now 
thTGreys. saw that, in front of the centre of the Greys, and at a 
distance from it of five or six horses' length, there was 
gathered a group of four horsemen. Two of these were 
side by side, and a little in front of the others. Of the 
two foremost, the one on the left wore the cocked-hat 
which indicated the presence of a Staff-officer, and 
suggested indeed, at first sight, that the wearer might 
be the General who commanded the brigade ; but a 
field-glass corrected the error, showing instantly that 
the horseman who thus caught the eye from a dis- 
tance was no more than a young lieutenant — Lieu- 
tenant Alexander Elliot, the aide-de-camp of General 
Scarlett. But to the right of the young aide-de-camp 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



103 



there was another horseman, on a thorough-bred bay, CHAP. 

standing fully, it seemed, sixteen hands. To judge > , 

from his head-gear, this last horseman might seem to 
be no more than a regimental officer of dragoons — 
for he wore the same helmet as they did — but an 
outer-coat of dark blue, thrown on, it seemed, over 
his uniform, served to show that he must be on the 
Staff. Because of the bright contrast disclosed be- 
tween the warm summer hue of his features and a 
drooping mustache white as snow, it was possible to 
see from afar that this officer must be General Scarlett. 
Of the two horsemen who kept themselves a little in 
rear of the General, the one was his trumpeter, the 
other his orderly. This last man had attained to high 
skill as a swordsman, and was a valorous, faithful 
soldier. If it were not for the general spread of in- 
credulity, it would be acknowledged that he drew his 
lineage from some mighty giantess of former ages, 
for he bore the surname of Shegog. 

Scarlett's yearning at this moment was for the 
expected prolongation of his line towards its left, 
and he compelled himself to give yet some moments 
for the forming of his 5 th Dragoon Guards ; but on 
his right, the one squadron of the Inniskillings (the 
squadron which he took to be the whole regiment) 
was both ready and more than ready. Differing in 
that respect from the rest of the * three hundred/ the 
squadron had a clear front, and the sense of this 
blessing so inflamed it with warlike desire, that 
during the moments of delay, Scarlett had to be 
restraining the line by waving it back with his sword. 



104 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. The squadron chafed proudly at the touch of the 

SEl— curb, and it seemed that if the General were to 

relax his care for an instant, it would bound for- 
ward up the hillside, and spring all alone at the 
column. 

The custom of the service requires that an officer 
who has the immediate command of a body of cavalry 
engaged in the duty of charging shall be the actual 
leader of the onslaught in the strictest sense, riding for- 
ward at a distance of at least some few yards in advance 
of his squadrons ; but it must not be supposed that 
those who originated or sanctioned this practice were 
acting in contemplation of any such circumstances as 
those which now existed, or that they ever intended to 
subject a general officer, or indeed any other human 
being, to the peculiar species of personal hazard which 
Scarlett had resolved to confront. As tested by its 
general operation, the practice is not one which un- 
duly exposes the life of the chief ; for when a strong 
body of horse is hurled at full pace towards the foe, it 
commonly happens that either the attack or the resist- 
ance gives way before the moment of impact ; but in 
this rare example of a slow, yet resolute, charge of 
three hundred, directed uphill against broad and deep 
masses of squadrons which reckoned their strength 
by thousands, it seemed nearly certain from the first 
that the General leading it must come, and come 
almost singly, into actual bodily contact with a host 
of adversaries, and remain for a time engulfed in it 
because the enemy's front ranks were so barred against 
all retreat by the squadrons behind them, that there 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



105 



could be no hope of putting the body to flight by the CHAP, 
mere approach of our squadrons. < — ^— ' 

At this time, the distance between the Eussians 
and General Scarlett is believed to have been about 
400 yards. 

For the better understanding of what presently Scarlett's 
followed, it is well to know that when a brigadier IS from the 
directing a movement which must be executed by ed prac- 
only a portion of his force, the notes of the brigade tlce ' 
trumpet do not instantly and directly take effect upon 
the troops ; because the order of the brigadier, in the 
case supposed, must be repeated by the regimental 
officers. It will also be useful to remember that 
squadrons in general are not moved from a halt to a 
charge by a single word of command. When the pro- 
cess is gone through with full deliberation, the first 
order is this : — 6 The line will advance at a walk ! ' 
and, the trumpet successively sounding the orders 
which follow, the force is brought on to its final task 
through the stages of ' Trot ! ' ' Gallop ! 1 6 Charge ! '* 

Now, Scarlett well knew how much all depended 
upon striking at the enemy's masses whilst yet they 
stood halted ;t and so far as concerned his OWn Orders, The order 
he was hardly in the humour for travelling through his ^rum- 
all the anterior stages. He turned to his trumpeter peter * 
and said at once, e Sound the charge ! ' 

* The walk, I believe, is often if not indeed generally omitted ; but 
the other three stages are de regie. 

f According to the impression of Lord Lucan — differing in that re- 
spect from those who took part in the execution of the charge — the 
Kussian column by this time had resumed its advance down the hill. 



rons. 



106 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP. Whilst the notes were still pealing, and before they 
> — ^— ' could take full effect upon the squadrons behind him, 
Scarlett's Scarlett moved forward at a trot ; and although the 

advance. . . 

impediments of the camping-ground made it neces- 
sary for a rider in this the first part of the onset to 
pick his way with some care, yet the horse Scarlett 
rode was a horse of such stride and power, that his 
rate of advance was not slow, even over the ob- 
structed ground ; and, as soon as the clear field 
which was at length gained enabled the leader to 
get into a gallop, the distance between him and his 
His dis- squadrons was swiftly increased. In a few moments, 
his squad- he was so far in advance of them that Elliot judged 
it right to call the attention of the chief to the 
position of his squadrons. Those squadrons were 
by this time advancing ; but the impediments of 
the camping-ground proved of course more obstruct- 
ing to the serried ranks of the Greys than to a 
horseman with only one companion and two attend- 
ants. Scarlett could not question that the distance 
between him and his squadrons had become extra- 
vagantly great ; but still judging, as he had judged 
from the first, that it was of vital moment to strike 
the enemy s column whilst halted, he rather desired 
to accelerate the Greys than much to retard his own 
pace. Therefore, still pressing forward, though not 
quite so swiftly as before, he turned partly round in 
his saddle, shouted out a c Come on ! ' to the Greys, 
and invoked them with a wave of his sword. 

When the squadrons attained to clear ground, they 
began to reduce the space which divided them from 



PLATE 



BATTLE OF 

??BA LAC L AVA 

* The Heavy Cavalry 




Tjo/xtLu^art/this positLort 
varLeJ. -/rcrrt-tLrn^. to time 



Squadrcn. ofthelrtmsMJJjjuys 



The. 5^ JjroMcon. Guards 
about to attcuiks 



Scarlett's three charging 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



107 



their leader ; but it is computed that, at the moment CHAP, 
of Scarlett's first contact with the enemy's column, • — ^— ' 
the distance between him and the squadrons which 
followed him was still, at the least, fifty yards. 

The Brigadier now found himself nearing the front The Rus- 

m sian officer 

of the column at a point very near its centre, and the in front of 

r J the col- 

Spot at which Scarlett thus rode was marked by the umn at 

presence of a Eussian officer who sat erect in his where 

saddle some few paces in front of his people, and was about 

confronting the English intruder. toassa it. 

Scarlett by this time was charging up at high speed, 
and, conjoined with the swiftness thus attained, the 
weight of a sixteen-hands horse gave his onset a 
formidable momentum. The Eussian officer turned 
partly round in his saddle, with a gesture which 
seemed to indicate that he sought to beckon forward 
his people, and cause them to flood down over the 
four coming horsemen ; but already Scarlett and 
his aide-de-camp were closing. Moved perhaps by 
such indication of rank as was to be gathered in 
one fleeting moment from the sight of a staff-officer's 
hat, the Eussian officer chose Elliot for his adversary, 
and was going to make his first thrust, when along 
the other side of him, rushing close past the elbow 
of his bridle-arm, General Scarlet swept on without Scarlett 
hindrance, and drove his way into the column. pIsTthe S 

It was by digging his charger right in between the ofthe arm 
two nearest troopers before him that Scarlett wedged officertand 
himself into the solid mass of the enemy's squadrons, the 
When a man has done an act of this kind, and has column - 
lived to speak of it, it is difficult for him to be sure of 



108 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



C HA P. what might be happening close around him, but Scar- 
' — ^— * lett observed that of the adversaries nearest to him, 
whom he had not, he knew, gravely wounded, there 
were some who dropped off their horses without hav- 
ing been killed or wounded by him ; and it seemed 
to him, if he were to judge only from his own eyes, 
that they were throwing themselves to the ground of 
their own accord. 

It was well perhaps, after all, that Scarlett, in lead- 
ing the charge, was extravagantly ahead of his troops ; 
for it seems he was able to drive so far into the column 
as to be protected by the very bodies of his adversaries 
from the shock which must needs be inflicted by the 
Greys and Inniskillings when charging the front of 
the column. 

General From the moment when the Brigadier had thus 

Scarlett & 

in the established himself in the midst of his foes, it resulted, 

column. 

of course, that his tenure of life was by the sword, and 
not by the sword which is a metaphor, but by that 
which is actual, and of steel. Scarlett, it seems, had 
no pretension to be more than a passably good swords- 
man, and he had the disadvantage of being near- 
sighted ; but he knew how to handle his weapon, and 
in circumstances which exposed him to attack from 
several at the same time, he had more need of such 
unflagging industry of the sword-arm as might keep 
the blade flashing here, there, and on all sides in 
quickly successive whirls, than of the subtle, the deli- 
cate skill which prepares men for combats of two. 
Elliot's It was partly, perhaps, from the circumstance of 
with the Elliot's approaching him on the side of his sword-arm 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



109 



that the Eussian officer in front of the column chose CHAP, 
the aide-de-camp for his antagonist instead of the v__ Z^-s 
chief ; but be that as it may, he faced Elliot as f^*f n 
he approached and endeavoured to cut him down. ^TcoL 
Evading or parrying the cut, Elliot drove his sword umn - 
through the body of the assailant, and the swiftness 
with which he was galloping up whilst delivering this 
thrust was so great that the blade darted in to the 
very hilt ; but until the next moment, when Elliot's 
charger had rushed past, the weapon, though held fast 
by its owner, still could not be withdrawn. Thence 
it resulted that the Eussian officer was turned round 
in his saddle by the leverage of the sword which 
transfixed him. In the next instant, Elliot, still 
rushing forward with great impetus, drove into the 
column between the two troopers who most nearly 
confronted him, and then, with a now reeking The three 
sword, began cleaving his way through the ranks, riding 
Shegog and the trumpeter came crashing in after; lett. 
so that not only Scarlett himself, but all the three 
horsemen who constituted his immediate following, 
were now engulfed in the column. 

A singular friendship had long subsisted between The an- 
the Scots Greys and the Inniskilling Dragoons. It friendship 
dated from the time of that famous brigade in which the Scots 
three cavalry regiments were so brought together as to tfoinnis^ 
express by their aggregate title the union of the three Dragoons, 
kingdoms, yet offer a sample of each ;* but the circum- 
stance of the Greys and the Inniskillings having been 

* The < Union Brigade.' The regiment which in that historic bri- 
gade represented England was the ' Royals.' 



110 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, brigaded together in the great days can hardly be 
• — Zil— ' treated as alone sufficing to account for the exist- 
ence and duration of this romantic attachment; for 
it so happens that the sentiment which thus bound 
together the thistle and the shamrock has never in- 
cluded the rose. The friendship between the Scottish 
and the Irish regiment had the ardour of personal 
friendship, and a. tenacity not liable to be relaxed by 
mere death ; for a regiment great in history bears so 
far a resemblance to the immortal gods as to be old 
in power and glory, yet have always the freshness of 
youth. Long intervals of years often passed in which 
the Greys and the Inniskillings remained parted by 
distance, but whenever it became known that by some 
new change of quarters the two regiments would once 
more be brought together, there used to be great 
joy and preparation ; and whether the in-marching 
regiment might be the Greys or the Inniskillings, 
it was sure to be welcomed by the other one with 
delight and with lavish attentions. 

When last the sworn friends were together in what 
they might deign to call fighting, they were under the 
field-glass of the great Napoleon. Then, as now, the 
Greys charged in the first line, and on the left of the 
Inniskillings."* 

The dis- Of the two comrade regiments, each had its distin- 

ing S chlr- guishing characteristics. The Inniskillings, with still 

of the two some remaining traces in their corps of the old war- 
regiments. 

* It had been intended by Lord Uxbridge that they should act in 
support, but circumstances superseded his directions, and caused them to 
charge in first line. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. Ill 

like Orange enthusiasm, were eager, fiery, impetuous.*"' CHAP. 
The Scots Greys, with a great power of self-restraint, v_J?^__, 
were yet liable to be wrought upon by their native 
inborn desire for a fight, till it raged like a consuming 
passion. From the exceeding tenacity of their nature, 
it resulted that the combative impulses, when long 
baffled by circumstances, were cumulative in their 
effect; and the events of the day— the capture of 
British guns under the eyes of our horsemen — the 
marching, the countermarching, the marching again, 
without ever striking a blow, and finally, the dainty 
dressing of ranks under the eyes of the enemy's host — 
all these antecedent trials of patience had been heat- The tem- 
ing and still heating the furnace by the very barriers Greys at 
which kept down the flame. If, with the Inniskillings, this time ' 
the impetuosity I spoke of was in a great measure 
aggregate, that yearning of the Scots for close quarters 
was, with many, the passion of the individual man, 
and so plain to the eye that the trooper became some- 
thing other than a component part of a machine — be- 
came visibly a power of himself. English officers who 
were combative enough in their own way, yet saw with 
wonder not unmingled with a feeling like awe that 
long-pent-up rage for the fight which was consuming 
the men of the Greys. 

In the earlier part of the advance now at length unavoid- 
commenced by the three squadrons, there was nothing nestofthe 
that could much impress the mind of an observer who j£ i t a s nce 

* The proportion of the regiment recruited from Ireland was very moments 
much smaller than it had been in former times, but still the Orange 
element, coupled with the force of regimental tradition, was enough to 
warrant the statement contained in the text. 



112 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, failed to connect it in his mind with the prospect of 
: — v~^— ' what was to follow ; and a somewhat young critic was 
heard to condemn the advance by declaring it ' tame/ 
The truth is — and that we discovered before, whilst 
tracing the steps of Scarlett — that the Greys had to 
pick their way as best they could through the impedi- 
ments of the camp ; and although Colonel Dalrymple 
White with the 2d squadron of the Inniskillings had 
clear ground before him, he was too good an officer 
to allow the fiery troops he was leading to break from 
their alignment with the obstructed regiment on his 
left. 

Progress But when the Greys got clear of the camping-ground, 
advance, both they and tlie Inniskilling squadron on their right 
began to gather pace ; and when the whole line had 
settled into its gallop, there began to take effect that 
spontaneous change of structure which often attends 
involun- cavalry charges, for the front rank began to spread 
Sion of out , and from time to time the rear -rank men, as 
w£ist ad- opportunities offered, pushed forward into the open- 
vancmg. j n gg t hus made for them. This change was car- 
ried so far that in large portions of the line, if not 
through its whole extent, the two ranks which had 
begun the advance were converted by degrees into 
one. The ' three hundred/ whilst advancing as they 
did at first in two ranks, were enormously outflanked 
by the enemy, and it seems that from this circumstance 
men were instinctively led to give freer scope to the 
impulses which tended to a prolongation of front. 

There was now but small space between our slender 
line of ' three hundred ' and the dark serried mass 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



113 



which had received their leader into its depths ; and CHAP, 
the Kussian horsemen — so ill-generalled as to be still « — ^— ■> 
kept at the halt * — began here and there firing their ^ ^orae- 
carbines. Colonel Griffith, commanding the Greys, ^ingto 
was so struck, it seems, by a shot in the head as to tirea™ 18 - 
be prevented from continuing to lead on his regiment. 

Thet two squadron-leaders of the Greys were in Theoffi- 
their places ; and of these Major Clarke, the leader charged 
of the right squadron, was the senior officer, but he Grey S the 
did not yet know that he had acceded to the tem- 
porary command of the regiment,! and continued to 
lead the right squadron. 

Besides § Major Clarke, thus leading the first^squad- 
ron, and being in command of the regiment, || the 
officers who now charged with the Greys were these : 
— Captain Williams led the 2d squadron ; Manley, 
Hunter, Buchanan, and Sutherland were the four 
troop-leaders of the regiment ; the adjutant was Lieu- 
tenant Miller ; the serre-files were Boyd, Nugent, and 

* See footnote ante, p. 105. 

t The words ' Colonel and ' should be added after the word ' The '. 
See the next footnote. — Note to 3d Edition. 

$ This is a mistake, and a very serious one, which I most gladly 
rectify ; for Colonel, now General Griffith, led the Greys into the mass 
of the Russian cavalry, cut through it, and entered the supporting 
column. It was after this, and whilst charging back again with men of 
the Greys, that he received the pistol-shot in the head which for a while 
disabled him. See in the Appendix his letter, and also a statement by 
Dr Ramsay Brush, late of the Greys. — Note to 3d Edition. 

§ The words ' Colonel Griffith and ' should here be inserted. — Note 
to 3d Edition. 

|| He had not then acceded to the command of the regiment. Colonel 
Griffith (who had not yet received his wound) was both commanding 
and leading the regiment. See the three last foot-notes.— Note to 3d 
Edition. 

VOL. IV. H 



114 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



cers vrho 
charged 
with the 
2d squad- 
ron of the 
lnniskil- 



C HA P. Lenox Prendergast. And to these, though he did not 
• — ' then hold the Queen's commission, I add the name of 
John Wilson, now a cornet and the acting adjutant of 
the regiment, for he took a signal part in the fight. 
Theoffi- Besides Colonel Dalrymple White, who was pre* 
sent in person with this moiety of his Inniskillings, 
the officers who charged with this, the 2d squadron of 
the regiment, were Major Mauley, the leader of the 
lings. squadron ; Lieutenant Rawlinson, and Lieutenant and 
Adjutant Weir. 

I believe that after General Scarlett and the three 
horsemen with him, who had already engulfed them- 
selves in the dark sloping thicket of squadrons, the 
next man who rode into contact with the enemy's 
Colonel horse was Colonel Dalrymple White, the commander 
pie White of the Inniskillings, and then acting in person in 
front of his second or left-hand squadron. Straight 
before him he had a part of the enemy's column so 
far from where Scarlett went in as to be altogether 
new ground (if so one may speak of a human 
mass), whilst, by casting a glance in the direction 
of his right front, he could see how enormously the 
enemy was there outflanking him; but he followed 
in the spirit with which Scarlett had led, and drove 
his way into the column. 
Major Whilst Major Clarke was leading in the right 
squadron of the Greys without knowing that he had 
acceded to the command of the regiment/" an accident 
befell him, which might seem at first sight — and so 



at the 
head of 
the 2d 
squadron 
of the 
Inniskil- 
lings. 



Clarke. 



* He had not then acceded to the command of the regiment. See 
the four last foot-notes. — Note to 3d Edition, 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



115 



indeed he himself apparently judged it — to be one of CHAP, 
a very trivial kind, but it is evident that in its effect w^i— - 
upon the question of his surviving or being slain it 
trebled the chances against him. Without being 
vicious, his charger, then known as the ' Sultan,' was 
liable to be maddened by the rapture of galloping 
squadrons, and it somehow resulted from the frenzy 
which seized on the horse that the rider got his 
bearskin displaced, and suffered it to fall to the 
ground. Well enough might it appear to the 
pious simplicity of those Russian troopers who saw 
the result, and not the accident which caused it, that 
the red-coated officer on the foremost grey horse rode 
visibly under the shelter of some Satanic charm, 
or else with some spell of the Church holding good, 
by the aid of strong faith, against acres upon acres 
of swords ; for now, when Clarke made the last rush, 
and dug ' Sultan ' in through their ranks, he entered 
among them bare-headed. 

The difference that there was in the tempera- The charge 
ments of the two comrade regiments showed itself three hun- 
in the last moments of the onset. The Scots Greys dred ' 
gave no utterance except to a low, eager, fierce moan 
of rapture — the moan of outbursting desire. The 
Inniskillings went in with a cheer. 

With a rolling prolongation of clangour which re- 
sulted from the bends of a line now deformed by its 
speed, the * three hundred ' crashed in upon the front 
of the column. They crashed in so weightily that 
no cavalry, extended in line and halted, could have 
withstood the shock if it had been able to shrink and 



116 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, fall back : but whatever might be their inclination, 
VI 

• — ^— > the front-rank men of the Eussian column were 
debarred, as we saw, from all means of breaking 
away to the rear by the weight of their own serried 
squadrons sloping up the hillside close behind them ; 
and, it being too late for them to evade the concussion 
by a lateral flight, they had no choice — it was a cruel 
trial for cavalry to have to endure at the halt — they 
had no choice but to await and suffer the onslaught. 
On the other hand, it was certain that if the Eussian 
hussar being halted should so plant and keep himself 
counter to his assailant as to be brought into dia- 
metric collision with the heavier man and the heavier 
horse of the Inniskillings or the Greys whilst charging 
direct at his front, he must and would be overborne. 
It might, therefore, be imagined that many of the 
troopers in the front rank of the Eussian column 
would now be perforce overthrown, that numbers of 
our dragoons would in their turn be brought to the 
ground by that very obstacle — the obstacle of over- 
turned horses and horsemen — which their onset seemed 
about to build up, and that far along the front of the 
column the field would be encumbered with a heap or 
bank of prostrated riders and chargers, where Eus- 
sians would be struggling for extrication intermingled 
with Inniskillings or Greys. Such a result would 
apparently have been an evil one for the 'three 
' hundred/ because it would have enabled the unshat- 
tered masses of the enemy to bring their numbers to 
bear against such of the redcoats as might still remain 
in their saddles. 



i 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 117 

It was not thus, however, that the charge wrought CHAP, 
its effect. What had first been done by Scarlett and v_J^__^ 
the three horsemen with him, what had next been 
done by Dalrymple White, and next by the squadron- 
leaders and other regimental officers whose place was 
in front of their men, that now, after more or less 
struggle, the whole of these charging ■ three hundred ' 
were enabled to achieve. 

The result of their contact with the enemy was a 
phenomenon so much spoken of in the days of the old 
war against the French Empire, that it used to be 
then described by a peculiar but recognised phrase. 
Whether our people spoke with knowledge of fact, or 
whether they spoke in their pride, I do not here stay 
to question ; but in describing the supposed issue of 
conflicts in which a mass of Continental soldiery was 
assailed by English troops extended in line, it used 
to be said of the foreigners that they ' accepted the 
' files/ * This meant, it seems, that instead of oppos- 
ing his body to that of the islander with such rigid 
determination as to necessitate a front-to-front clash, 
and a front-to-front trial of weight and power, the 
foreigner who might be steadfast enough to keep his 
place in the foremost rank of the assailed mass would 
still be so far yielding as to let the intruder thrust 
past him and drive a way into the column. 

* It was to infantry, I believe, that the words used to be applied ; 
but it has been adjudged that they describe with military accuracy the 
reception which was given by the Russian column to Scarlett's ' three 
' hundred.' Lord Seaton — Colonel Colborne of the illustrious 52d 
Regiment — was one of those who handed down the phrase to a later 
generation. 



118 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Whatever was the foundation for this superb faith, 
— ^— ' the phrase, as above interpreted, represents with a 
singular exactness what the front rank of the Russian 
column now did. These horsemen could not fall back 
under the impact of the charge ; and, on the other 
hand, they did not so plant themselves as to be each 
of them a directly opposing hindrance to an assailant. 
They found and took a third course. They 6 accepted 
' the files/ Here, there, and almost everywhere along 
the assailed part of the column, the troopers who stood 
in front rank so sidled and shrank that they suffered 
the Grey or the Inniskillinger to tear in between them 
with the licence accorded to a cannon-ball which is 
seen to be coming, and must not be obstructed, but 
shunned. So, although, by their charge, these few horse- 
men could deliver no blow of such weight as to shake 
the depths of a column extending far up the hillside, 
they more or less shivered or sundered the front rank 
of the mass, and then, by dint of sheer wedge- work 
and fighting, they opened and cut their way in. It 
was in the nature of things that at some parts of the 
line the hindrance should be greater than at others ;* 
but, speaking in general terms, it can be said that, 
as Scarlett had led, so his first line righteously fol- 
lowed; and that, within a brief space from the moment 
of the first crash, the ' three hundred/ after more or 
less strife, were received into the enemy's column. 

* Such hindrances must have chiefly occurred at spots where a few of 
our troopers may have chanced to be clumped together for some mo- 
ments. Amidst all the stores of information on which I rely, I find no 
proof that any of our people were detained on the outside of the column 

"by stress of combat. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



119 



Lord Kaglan was so rich in experience of the great CHAP, 
times, and so gifted with the somewhat rare power of • — Zi— ' 
swiftly apprehending a combat, that he instantly saw 
the full purport, and even divined the sure issue, of 
what our dragoons were doing; but it was not 
without some dismay on the part of other English 
beholders, that Scarlett and his c three hundred ' were 
thus seen to bury themselves in the enemy's masses. 
And with every moment, the few thus engulfed in 
the many seemed nearer and nearer to extinction. 
For awhile, indeed, the Inniskillinger and the Grey 
— the one by his burnished helmet, the other by 
the hue of his charger, and both by the red of their 
uniforms — could be so followed by the eye of the 
spectator as to be easily seen commingling with the 
dark-mantled masses around them ; but the more the 
interfusion increased, the greater became the seeming 
oppressiveness of the disproportion between the few 
and the many; and soon this effect so increased, that 
if a man gazed from the heights of the Chersonese 
without the aid of a field-glass, he could hardly ward 
off a belief that the hundreds had been swamped in 
the thousands. 

Yet all this while General Scarlett and the 'three 
( hundred ' horsemen who had followed him into the 
column were not in such desperate condition as to be 
helplessly perishing in this thicket of lances and 
swords. If, indeed, they had faltered and hovered 
with uncertain step in the front of the great Eussian 
column till it might please General Kyjoff to sound 
' the trot/ they must have been crushed or dispersed 



120 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, by the descending weight of his masses ; but our 
• — Zi— ' horsemen, by first charging home and then forcing 
their way into the heart of the column, had gained 
for themselves a strange kind of safety (or rather 
of comparative safety), in the very density of the 
squadrons which encompassed them. It is true that 
every man had to fight for his life, and that too with 
an industry which must not be suffered to flag ; but 
still he fought under conditions which were not so over- 
whelmingly unfair as they seemed to be at first sight. 

Scarlett's men, as we know, were * heavy dragoons,' 
whilst the Kussians were either hussars or troops 
of other denominations, ranging under the head of 
£ light cavalry;' but in the fight now about to be 
waged this difference was of less importance than 
might be imagined. The weight of our men and the 
weight of their horses had served them well in the 
charge ; and even in the closely-locked combat of 
few against many to which they had now committed 
themselves, the red-coated troopers were likely to be 
advantaged by their greater height from the ground 
and the longer reach of their sword-arms ; but in 
point of defensive accoutrements they were less pro- 
tected than the light cavalry were with whom they 
had to contend. Except the helmets worn by the 
one squadron of the Inniskillings, the ' three hundred ' 
had no sort of covering or accoutrement contrived for 
defence.* They were without their shoulder-scales, 

* The bearskins of the Greys gave no donbt great protection, but can 
hardly be said to have been contrived for the purpose. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



121 



and even without their gauntlets. The Eussians, on CHAP. 

. VI. 
the other hand (with the exception of a very small - — * — » 

proportion of them who wore and disclosed their pale- 
blue hussar jackets), were all encased in what was (for 
the purpose of this peculiar combat) a not inefficient 
suit of armour ; for the thick, coarse, long grey outer- 
coat which they wore gave excellent protection against 
the cuts of an Englishman's sabre, and was not altoge- 
ther incapable of even defeating a thrust;" 5 " whilst the 
shako was of such strength and quality as to be more 
effectual than a helmet against the edge of the sword. f 

In such skill as is gained by the sword exercise, 
there was not perhaps much disparity between the 
combatants ; but the practice of our service up to 
that time had failed to provide the troopers with 
those expedients of fence which he would be needing 
when assailed in the direction of his bridle-arm ; and 
this of course was a somewhat imperilling defect for 
a horseman who had to combat in a crowd of enemies, 
and was liable to be attacked on all sides. 

Though reckoned by thousands, and having for the 
moment no heavier task than that of overwhelming 
or shaking off somewhat less than three hundred 
assailants, the Eussians were prevented from exerting 
the strength of their column by the very grossness of 
its numbers, formed up as they were on a limited 

* The edges of our men's sabres seemed to rebound from the loose 
thick grey cloth, and sometimes — I know one instance especially — the 
point of a sword thrust hard at a Russian thus clothed was bent back 
by the resistance it encountered. 

f One day the Vicomte de Noe and an English officer undertook to 
test the strength of a Russian shako ; and the Vicomte declares that 
they were actually unable to cleave it with a hatchet. 



122 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, space, and wedged into one compact mass. Still no 
— < one among the 8 three hundred/ whether fighting in 
knots with others, or fighting all alone in the crowd, 
could fail to be under such actual stress of simul- 
taneous assailants as to have to confide in his single 
right arm for all means of defence against numbers ; 
and, upon the whole, it would seem that the mere 
physical conditions of the fight were largely in favour 
of the Kussians ; but in regard to the temper of the 
combatants, there were circumstances which tended 
to animate the few and to depress the many. Under 
conditions most trying to cavalry, the Kussians 
evinced a degree of steadfastness not unworthy of a 
nation which was famous for the valour of its in- 
fantry; but kept as they had been at a halt, and con- 
demned (in violation of the principles which govern 
the use of cavalry) to be passively awaiting the 
attack, it was impossible for them to be comparable 
in ardour, self-trust, and moral ascendant to horse- 
men exalted and impassioned by the rapture of the 
charge, and now in their towering pride riding this 
way and that with fierce shouts through the patient 
long-suffering mass. 

In some parts of the column the combatants were 
so closely locked as to be almost unable, for awhile, 
to give the least movement to their chargers ; and 
wherever the red-coated horseman thus found him- 
self inwedged and surrounded by assailants, it was 
only by the swift-circling 6 moulinet/ by an almost 
ceaseless play of his sabre whirling round and round 
overhead, and by seizing now and then an occasion 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



123 



for a thrust or a cut, that he was able to keep himself CHAP, 
among the living ; but the horse, it seems, during - — ^— ' 
these stationary rights, instinctively sought and found 
shelter for his head by bending it down, and leaving 
free scope for the sabres to circle and clash overhead. 
At other places — for the most part perhaps in those 
lanes of space which were constituted by the usual 
■ intervals ' and ' distances ' intersecting the mass — 
there was so much more freedom of movement that 
groups of as many as ten or twelve Russians who had 
fallen out of their ranks would be here and there seen 
devoting themselves to a common purpose by con- 
federating themselves, as it were, against particular 
foes, and endeavouring to overwhelm the knot of two 
or three Greys or Inniskillingers which they deemed 
to be the most in their power. Where this occurred, 
the two or three redcoats, more or less separated 
from each other, would be seen striving to force their 
way through the masses before them, and attended 
on their flanks and in their rear by a band of assail- 
ants, who did not, most commonly, succeed in over- 
powering the tall horsemen, but persisted nevertheless 
in hanging upon them. Our troopers, thus encom- 
passed, strove hard, as may well be supposed, to cut 
down the foes within reach ; but in general the sabre 
seemed almost to rebound like a cudgel from the 
thick grey outer-coat of the Russian horseman ; and 
upon the whole, there was resulting as yet but little 
carnage from this singular example of a fight between 
a heavy column of halted cavalry and the knots of the 
taller horsemen who were riving in deeper and deeper. 




THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. With but few exceptions, the Scots Greys were of 
- — ^— / the race which the name of their regiment imports ; 
and, from a conjuncture of circumstances which must 
needs be of rare occurrence in modern times, the 
descendants of the Covenanters had come upon an 
hour when troopers could once more be striving in 
that kind of close fight which marked the period 
of our religious wars — in that kind of close fight 
which withdraws the individual soldier from , his 
fractional state of existence, and exalts him into a 
self-depending power. A Scots Grey, in the middle 
of our own century, might have no enraging cause 
to inflame him ; but he was of the blood of those who 
are warriors by temperament, and not because of 
mere reasons. And he, too, had read his Bible. Men 
who saw the Scots Grey in this close fight of Scarlett's, 
travel out of humanity's range to find beings with 
which to compare him. His long-pent-up fire, as they 
say, had so burst forth as to turn him into a demon 
of warlike wrath ; but it must not be inferred from 
such speech that he was under the power of that 
* blood frenzy ' of which we shall afterwards see an 
example ; and the truth can be satisfied by acknow- 
ledging that, as his fathers before him had ever been 
accustomed to rage in battle, so he too, in this later 
time, was seized and governed by the passion of fight. 
When numbers upon numbers of docile obedient Rus- 
sians crowded round a Scot of this quality, and beset 
him on all sides, it did not of necessity result that 
they had the ascendant. Whilst his right arm was 
busy with the labour of sword against swords, he 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



125 



could so use his bridle-hand as to be fastening its CHAP. 

VI 

grip upon the long-coated men of a milder race, and - — * 
tearing them out of their saddles. / 

Engaged in this ceaseless toil of fighting for life, as 
well as for victory, the Greys and the Inniskillingers 
were hardly so self-conscious as to be afterwards able 
to speak at all surely of the degree of confidence with 
which they maintained this singular combat of the few 
against many ; but of those who observed from a dis- 
tance, there was one who more swiftly and more sure- 
ly than others could apprehend the features of a still 
pending conflict. Almost from the first, Lord Eaglan 
perceived that our horsemen, though scant in numbers, 
and acting singly or in small knots, still showed signs 
of having dominion over the mass they had chosen 
to invade.""" Whether the cause of this ascendant be 
traced to the greater height and longer reach of our 
horsemen, to the unspeakable advantage of being the 
assailants, to the inborn pride and warlike tempera- 
ment of our men, or finally, to all these causes united, 
the actual result was that the redcoats, few as they 
were, seemed to ride through the crowd like sure 
tyrants. The demeanour of the Russian horsemen was 
not unlike what might have been expected. Gazing 
down as they did from a slope, even those who were 
not in the foremost ranks could see the exceedino; 
scantiness of the force which had made bold to attack 
them, and accordingly they seemed to remain steady 
and free from alarms of the kind which seize upon 

* The conflict, Lord Eaglan wrote, ' was never for a moment doubt - 
< ful.'— Public Despatch. 



126 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, masses ; but still the individual trooper who chanced 
^i—/ to be so placed in the column as to have to undergo 
the assaults of one of the Scots Greys or Inniskilling 
dragoons, seemed to own himself personally over- 
matched, and to meet the encounter almost hopelessly, 
like a brave man oppressed by the strong. Without 
apparently doubting — for there was no sign of panic 
— that overwhelming numbers must secure the gen- 
eral result, he yet found that, for the moment, those 
mere numbers could not give him the protection 
he needed, and he would so rein his charger, and 
so plant himself in his saddle, and so set his fea- 
tures, as to have the air of standing at bay. Of the 
objects surrounding our people whilst engaged in 
this closely locked fight, none stamped themselves 
more vividly on their minds than those numberless 
cages of clenched teeth ^which met them wherever 
they looked. 

From the time when the ' three hundred 5 had fairly 
closed with the enemy, there was but little recourse 
to carbine or pistol ; and the movement of the horses 
within the column being necessarily slight, and on 
thick herbage, there resulted little sound from their 
tramp. The clash of sabres overhead had become so 
steady and ceaseless, and its sound so commingled 
with the jangle of cavalry accoutrements proceeding 
from thousands of horsemen, that upon the whole it 
was but little expressive of the numberless separate 
conflicts in which each man was holding to life with 
the strength of his own right arm. 

In regard to the use men made of their voices, there 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



127 



was a marked difference between our people and the CHAP. 
Russian horsemen. The islanders hurled out, whilst 
they fought, those blasts of malediction, by which 
many of our people in the act of hard striving are 
accustomed to evoke their full strength ; whilst the 
Russians in general fought without using articulate 
words. Nor, instead, did they utter any truculent, 
theological yells of the kind which, some few days 
later, were destined to be heard on the battle-field. 
They had not, as yet, been sanctified. It was not till 
the 4th of November that the army of the Czar under- 
went that fell act of consecration which whetted his 
people t for the morrow, and prepared those strange 
shrieks of doctrinal hate which were heard on the 
ridges of Inkerman. But although abstaining from 
articulate speech and from fierce yells, the grey- 
mantled horseman in general was not therefore mute. 
He sometimes evolved, whilst he fought, a deep, 
gurgling, long-drawn sound, close akin to an inchoate 
roar ; or else — and this last was the predominant 
utterance — a sustained and continuous 'zizz,' of the 
kind that is made with clenched teeth ; and to the 
ears of those who were themselves engaged in the 
fight, the aggregate of the sounds coming thus 
from the mouths of the Russians was like that of 
some factory in busy England, where numberless 
wheels hum and buzz. And meanwhile, from those 
masses of Russian horsemen who stood ranged in 
such parts of the column as to be unable to engage 
in bodily combat, there rose a low murmur of that 
indefinite kind which attests the presence of a crowd 



128 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, without disclosing its humour. As heard on the 
VI. 

< — ^— ' edge of the Chersonese, a mile and a half towards 
the west, the collective roar which ascended from 
this thicket of intermixed combatants had the unity 
of sound which belongs to the moan of a distant 
sea. 

If this struggle bore closer resemblance to the 
fights of earlier ages than to those of modern times, 
it had also the characteristic of being less destructive 
than might be imagined to life and limb. General 
Scarlett's old Eton experience of what used to be there 
called a • rooge ' was perhaps of more worth to him than 
many a year of toil in the barrack-yard or the exercise- 
ground. Close wedged from the first in an enemy's 
column, and on all sides hemmed in by the Eussians, 
he was neither killed nor maimed, for the sabre which 
stove in his helmet was stopped before reaching his 
skull, and the only five wounds he received were, each 
of them, so slight as to be for the time altogether un- 
heeded. By some chance, or possibly as a consequence 
of wearing a head-gear which announced the presence 
of a Staff-officer, Lieutenant Elliot, the aide-de-camp 
of the Brigadier, was beset with great determination 
by numbers gathering round him on all sides ; and 
although his skill as a swordsman and the more 
than common length of his blade enabled him for a 
while to ward off the attacks of his many assail- 
ants, they at length closed about him so resolutely 
that it seemed hardly possible for a single horseman 
thus encompassed by numbers to defend himself many 
more moments ; but at this very time, as it happened, 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA, 



129 



his charger interposed in the combat."'" The horse had C HA P. 
become so angered by the pressure of the Russian ' — 
troop-horses closing in upon his flanks and quarters, 
that, determining to resent these discourtesies, he 
began to lash out with his heels, and this so vici- 
ously as not only to ward off attacks from the rear, 
but even in that direction to clear a space. There 
were four or five Russians, however, who resolutely 
addressed themselves to the task of extinguishing 
Elliot ; and at a moment when he had somewhat 
overreached himself in returning the thrust of a 
Russian trooper — a man with blue-looking nose and a 
savage, glittering eye — he received a point in the fore- 
head from his hideous adversary. At the same time, 
another of his assailants divided his face at the 
centre by a deep-slashing wound, whilst a third dealt 
a blow on the head which cut through his cocked-hat, 
and then by the sabre of yet a fourth assailant he 
was so heavily struck in the part of the skull behind 
the ear that, irrespectively of the mere wound inflicted 
by the edge of the weapon, his brain felt the weight 
of the blow.t There followed a period of uncon- 
sciousness, or rather, perhaps, we should call it, a 
period erased from the memory, for Elliot remained 
in his saddle, and it is hard to say how he could have 
been saved if the effect of the blow had been so dis- 



* If it had depended upon Elliot himself, I should never have heard 
of the circumstances here mentioned. He was an entire stranger to me, 
and it is to others that I owe the great advantage of having been 
brought into communication with him. 

f The wound which divided his face was so well sown up that it 
has not much marred his good looks. 

VOL. IV. I 



130 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, abling as to prevent him from using his sword-arm. 

- — Zi—' It is true he was much hacked, having received 
altogether in this fight no less than fourteen sabre- 
cuts, but he lived nevertheless, — nay lived, I observe, 
to be returned as ' slightly wounded/ and to find that 
his name, though most warmly and persistently re- 
commended by Scarlett, was kept out of the public 
despatches. * 

Of course, the incursion of the Brigadier and the 

* This resulted from a decision of Lord Lucan's. Lord Lucan con- 
ceived it to be his duty to suppress Scarlett's despatch recommending 
Elliot's services for official recognition, and to name only one of the 
cavalry aides-de-camp as amongst those who had 1 entitled themselves 
( to the notice of the Commander of the Forces ; ' but — and now comes 
what to the uninitiated must seem almost incredible — the aide-de-camp 
whom Lord Lucan honoured with this distinction in exclusion of Elliot 
and in defiance of Scarlett's despatch, was an officer (Lord Lucan's first 
aide-de-camp) who, as it happened, had not had an opportunity of being 
in any one of the cavalry charges. When I first became acquainted 
with this monstrous inversion, I believed that I could not do otherwise 
than ascribe it to Lord Lucan, and I resolved to comment upon his 
decision in the way which so gross a misfeasance would deserve if it 
were the act of a free agent. I suspend my determination in this respect, 
because further inquiry has led me to apprehend that, if Lord Lucan 
had named the right man instead of the wrong one, he would have been 
regarded as outraging the custom of the service beyond all the measure 
of what any one not holding supreme command could be expected to 
attempt. Supposing that be so, Lord Lucan, of course, cannot fairly 
be charged with more blame than other men of equal authority who 
continue a vicious practice without protesting against it ; but if he, on 
this ground, is to be absolved, what is to be said of an army system 
which compels such a falsification ? Well, what in such case would 
have to be said is this : that the military reputation of England is at 
' the mercy of a Trade-Union, which compels people placed in authority 
to enforce its rules for the repression of excellence by official inversions 
of fact. 

It may be worth while to add that Elliot could not be named for the 
Victoria Cross because what he did was no more, after all, than his duty. 
See in the Appendix papers relative to the exclusion of Elliot's name. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



131 



three horsemen with him had more of the character of CHAP, 
a ' forlorn hope ' than could belong to the enterprise wJ^L-' 
of the squadrons which followed him into the col- 
umn ; but, upon the whole, these combats of Scarlett's 
and his aide-de-camp were more or less samples of 
that war of the one against several which each of 
the ' three hundred' waged. 

This close bodily fighting put so great and so cease- 
less a strain upon the attention and the bodily power of 
the combatants, that, with some, it suspended to an 
extraordinary degree all care about self. Thus Clarke, 
for example, who had led on his squadron bare-headed, 
was so deeply cut on the skull by the edge of a sabre 
as to be startling to the eyes of others by the copious 
channel of blood which coursed down his head and 
neck ; yet he himself, all the while, did not know he 
had received any wound. And along with this enno- 
bling interruption of man's usual care after self, there 
was often a fanciful waywardness in his choice of the 
objects to which he inclined attention. Colonel Dal- 
rymple White, for example, after riding alone, as we 
saw, into an untouched part of the column at the head 
of his second squadron, had received such a heavy 
sabre-cut on his helmet as cleaved down home to the 
skull ; and although he remained altogether uncon- 
scious of the incident thus occurring to himself, he 
found his attention attracted and even interested by 
an object which did not concern him. He saw a 
fair-haired Russian lad of seventeen, enwrapped like 
the rest in the coarse heavy over-coat which was com- 
mon to officers and men ; and what seems to have 



132 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, interested him, — for he looked with the eyes of a man 
VI 

« — who cares much for questions of race — was the power- 
lessness of a levelling costume to disguise the true 
breed, and the certainty with which, as he thought, he 
could detect gentle blood under the common grey cloth 
of a trooper. * He looked/ says Colonel White, — ' he 
looked like an Eton boy. ? The boy fought with great 
bravery ; but it was well if he had no mother, for 
before the fight ended he fell, his youthful head 
cloven in two. 

Though each man amongst the ' three hundred' was 
guided, of course, in his path by the exigencies of the 
particular combats in which he engaged, and though 
many besides were so locked in the column from time 
to time as to be able to make little progress, yet, upon 
the whole, the tendency of the assailants was to work 
their way counter to the ranks of the enemy's squad- 
rons, and by degrees both Greys and Manley's squad- 
ron of Inniskillings pressed further and further in, till 
at length, it would seem, there were some who attained 
to the very rear of the column.*"" These did not, how- 
ever, emerge into the open ground in rear of the column 
(where a line of Cossacks stood ranged in open order), 
but preferred to keep back and remain fighting within 
the column, taking, each of them, such direction as 
best consisted with the exigencies of personal combat. 
Now it happened that, by this time, the Eussians 
— though not perhaps even imagining the idea of 

* This rests rather upon the observation of men who gazed from 
above than upon the distinct assertion of combatants who had pene- 
trated thus far. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



133 



retreat — had still so much followed their inclination CHAP. 

VI 

to be hanging upon the flanks and the quarters of < — 
every Scots Grey whilst advancing, that very many 
of them now faced towards their rear, and from 
this cause apparently it resulted that in seeking, as he 
naturally would, to be front to front with those who 
were most keenly besetting him, many a Scots Grey 
who had cut his road through from the front to the 
rear of the column, now found himself busied in once 
more riving the column, but riving it in the opposite 
direction. Whatever the cause, it is certain that 
there set in, as it were, a back eddy, and that the 
Greys for the most part were now cleaving the mass 
of their foes by a movement in the direction of the 
Eussian front. * There was a change, however, in the 
demeanour of the Greys, for whereas in the earlier 
moments of the fight they had seemed to be alto- 
gether intent upon slaughter, they now wore the 
more careless aspect of men who had proved then- 
ascendant. 

But although in reality this back current of the 
Greys formed an actual continuation of their attack, 
it was still, in the literal sense of the term, a retro- 
grade movement ; and towards the proper left of the 
column where Manley's squadron of the Inniskillings 
was fighting, men could more or less see the direction 
in which the Greys moved, without perceiving the 

* I.e., towards the English rear. It was whilst thus ' charging back' 
with his men that Colonel Darby Griffith received the wound which 
for the time disabled him, and caused Dr Brush to take him for a while 
out of action. See foot-notes {ante, p. 113, et seq.), and the letters of 
General Griffith and Dr Brush in the Appendix.— Note to 2d Edition. 



134 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, circumstances which governed their course. The sight 
— ^i— / of a number of the Greys in apparent retreat was 

not the only cause which now tended to overcast 

hope. 

The great Russian column was proving that, not- 
withstanding the mismanagement which had exposed 
it whilst halted to the almost insulting attack of three 
squadrons, it still was of too firm a quality to be all 
at once disintegrated and brought to ruin by the 
incursion of the small groups of the redcoats who 
were riving it in opposite directions ; and it now began 
to seem likely that in this conflict of three hundred 
against a column numbered by thousands, mere time 
might govern the issue by lessening every minute the 
relative power of the few. At this juncture also the 
huge and dense Russian mass began to enforce a sense 
of the power that there is, after all, in the mere weight 
of numbers ; for — without by this movement appear- 
ing to disclose any weakness — the column now swayed 
to and fro, and swayed so mightily as to make a man 
own himself helpless against the bodily weight of a 
crowd which could rock him one way or the other 
against all the strength of his will. 

So although the ' three hundred ' still toiled at 
their work of close fighting with a strength of resolve 
which knew no abatement, there yet were some of 
their numbers — and that, perhaps, amongst those 
most gifted with warlike instinct — who hardly now 
suffered themselves to imagine that the enterprise of 
the three squadrons which had forced their way into 
the heart of this column (without having brought it 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



135 



to ruin by the shock of their uphill charge) could be CHAP, 
wrought, after all, into a victory by dint of mere - — ^— > 
personal combats with vastly outnumbering horse- 
men. 

Whilst this was the state of the fight as it seemed 
to men locked in close strife, there were, all at once, 
heard British cheers sounding in from outside of 
the column, sounding in from one quarter first, but 
then almost instantly from another, and close fol- 
lowed by a new kind of uproar. Presently, from 
the south-east, there sounded the shout of a squadron 
which Inniskilling men knew how to recognise, and 
with it a crash — a crash prolonged for some moments 
— in the direction of the Kussian left front. Then, 
and from the same quarter, there broke out the roar 
of fresh tumult which was unlike the din of the fight 
going on in the midst of the column, and had rather 
the sound of such combat as might be waged by 
armed horsemen when not closely locked. The 
column, which every moment had been more and 
more heavily swaying, now heaved itself up the hill- 
side, and this time without being commensurately 
lifted back, as before, by the reaction of the moving 
power. 

But the time has now come for observing the 
manoeuvres of those two deployed Kussian wings 
which, on the right hand as well as the left, pro- 
longed the front ranks of the column. 



At the time when Scarlett's ■ three hundred/ after The man- 

• -ip _ _ eeuvres of 

closing upon the front of the column, had hardly the two 



136 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. 
VI. 

Russian 
wings. 



The cir- 
cumstan- 
ces under 
which 
they were 
attempt- 
ed. 



done more than begin their labour of man -to -man 
fighting, the commander of the Eussian cavalry made 
bold to undertake one of those new manoeuvres for 
which the peculiar structure of his winged column 
is supposed to have been specially fashioned. Ee- 
membering, it would seem, the teachings of St Peters- 
burg, he resolved to surround the three squadrons 
which were charging through the front of his column, 
and enfold them in the hug of the bear. Therefore 
on the right hand and on the left, the wings or fore- 
arms which grew out from the huge massive trunk 
began to wheel each of them inwards. 

There was many an English spectator who watched 
this phase of the combat with a singular awe, and 
long remembered the pang that he felt when he lost 
sight of Scarlett's ' three hundred/ To such a one 
the dark-mantled squadrons overcasting his sight of 
the redcoats were as seas where a ship has gone 
down, were as earth closing over a grave. One of 
the ablest of our Light Cavalry officers has striven to 
record the feelings with which he looked down on 
this part of the fight : — ' How can such a handful 
e resist much more make way through such a legion 1 
' Their huge flanks overlap them, and almost hide 
' them from our view. They are surrounded, and 
e must be annihilated. One can hardly breathe ! ' 

Yet if any observer thus trembling for the fate of 
Scarlett's 'three hundred/ had had his gaze less 
closely rivetted to one spot, he would have seen that, 
however desperate might be the condition of this 
small body of horsemen, now seemingly lost in gross 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 137 

numbers, there was no fresh ground for alarm in this CHAP. 

. VI 
singular manoeuvre of the Russian cavalry. General - — ^-1— ✓ 

Scarlett had attacked the great column with so small 
a proportion of his brigade, that, when the 'three 
' hundred ' had engulfed themselves in the column, 
there still remained four distinct bodies of Heavy- 
Dragoons (consisting altogether of seven squadrons), 
which, sooner or later, the English might bring to 
bear upon all the fresh exigencies of the combat; 
and it is plain that to some, nay, to most, of these 
seven squadrons, the enemy's in- wheeling flanks were 
offering no common occasion. On the other hand, 
the Russians, notwithstanding their great numerical 
strength, had so committed themselves to the plan of 
acting in mass as to be virtually without ' supports ; ' 
for although, as we saw, there was a part of the 
force which at first had been placed some way in 
rear of the main body, the distance was shortened 
in the course of the advance down the slope; and 
after the halt of the main column, the supporting 
force so closed down upon it as virtually to destroy 
the separation between the two bodies, and to merge 
them in one cumbrous mass. 

The seven squadrons of which we just spoke con- 
stituted the forces now preparing to act in support, 
which Lord Lucan, by his personal directions, might Lord 
still endeavour to wield. He was on the ground from Lucan ' 
which the Greys had advanced when beginning their 
attack. Already he had despatched an order directing to the 4th 
Colonel Hodge to charge with the 4th Dragoon gST 



138 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP. Guards,*" and he states that by voice and by gesture — 
• — ^ — ' for at the moment he had no aide-de-camp at hand — 
eddirec? ne tr i e d to enforce the instant advance of a regiment 
another on n * s rear » but ne ac ^s ^ na ^ nevertheless that 
regiment. re giment remained obstinately halted, t Lord Lucan 
did not give any other directions to the squadrons 
constituting his second line. Becoming apparently 



* And unless Lord Lucan's memory deceives him, the order was to 
charge the enemy's column on its right flank. I should have so stated 
it in the text, if it were not that the officer (not Colonel Hodge) who 
received the order describes it as merely this : — ' Lord Lucan desires 
' him ' (Colonel Hodge) ' to charge at once with the 4th Dragoon Guards.' 
I think, however, that Lord Lucan's impression of what he said is pro- 
bably quite accurate ; and, indeed, it would seem that his version of 
the order which he gave may be reconciled with this account of the 
terms in which it was delivered, because, as we shall see, the position 
which had been already taken up by the regiment made it obvious 
without words that the column, if attacked by the 4th Dragoon Guards, 
must be attacked in flank. See post, page 140. 

f With equal confidence he declares that the regiment thus appealed 
to was the 1st Dragoons, the regiment we call the Boyals. The state- 
ments submitted to my consideration oblige me to believe him 
mistaken ; but he was the commander of the division to which the 
Royals belonged, and he manfully gave effect to his impression by 
acts of a decisive kind — by acts of which one, at the least, was 
public. These are circumstances which make it right for me to 
acknowledge beforehand that what I shall by -and -by say of the 
final advance of the Royals is unsanctioned by Lord Lucan's de- 
spatch, and diametrically opposed to the impression which his mind 
has received. With the exception of the Greys, there was nothing 
in the uniforms of our Heavy Dragoon regiments, as worn on this 
day, which would enable a spectator at a distance of many paces 
to distinguish one from another. I at first felt embarrassed by the 
prospect of being compelled by evidence to reject the firm persuasion 
of the Divisional General, who was present in person and an actor in 
the scene ; but I ultimately ascertained that he was mistaken in regard 
to the identity of the force which stood on his right after Scarlett's final 
advance, and that the correction of this error would so dislocate his 
account of what he saw in the direction of his left rear as to remove a 
main part of the difficulty that I had felt. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



139 



impatient to push on to the front, he ultimately rode CHAP, 
up by our right to the (proper) left flank of the Rus- « — ^— ' 
sian column. 



We knew that from the first, three squadrons * of The order 
the Heavy Brigade had been preparing to second the someofthe 
onslaught of Scarlett's c three hundred ; ' but at the of our sup- 
moment of Scarlett's attack two more of his regiments about to* 
were approaching the scene of the fight; and in corded, 
speaking successively, as I am now going to do, of 
some movements or attacks which were executed by 
the 4 th Dragoon Guards, by the Royals, by the 5 th 
Dragoon Guards, and by Captain Hunt's squadron 
of the Inniskillings, I pass simply, for the present, 
from our left to our right, without intending to repre- 
sent that these nearly simultaneous operations took 
place, one after another, in that very order of time 
which would correspond with the order of narration. 

The 4th Dragoon Guards had not yet established The 4th 
itself on the ground pointed out by Lord Raglan's Guards? 
first order, when Colonel Hodge, its commander, be- 
came aware of the enemy's advance, and knew that 
his corps was to follow the squadrons which had 
already marched with Scarlett. He at once moved 
off in open column of troops, and the subsequent 
exigencies of the combat give an interest to the fact 
that he marched ' left in front.' 

Besides Lieutenant-Colonel Hodge, its commander, 
the officers of this regiment were Major Forrest, Cap- 

*. Hunt's squadron of the Inniskillings and the two squadrons of 
the 5th Dragoon Guards. 



140 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, tain Forster, Captain M'Creagh, Captain Webb, Cap- 
v— ZJl— / tain Kobertson, and four * subalterns ; namely, 
M'Donnel, Fisher, Muttlebury, and Deane. 

Whilst the regiment was clearing the south of the 
vineyard, it all at once came in sight of the vast 
dusky column of Eussian cavalry now streaked by the 
incursions of the redcoats. Indeed, those who looked 
from beneath were so favoured by the slope of the 
ground on which the column stood ranged, that from 
where he now rode with the 1st squadron of the 4th 
Dragoon Guards, Captain Forster was able to see Gen- 
eral Scarlett — he could distinguish him by the blue 
frock-coat and the glittering helmet — still fighting 
in the midst of the column, and some way in front of 
his men. 

The men of the 4th Dragoon Guards had been ad- 
vancing with their swords in their scabbards ; t but 
at sight of a combat going on, though they still were 
divided from it by a distance of some hundreds of 
yards, the men instinctively drew. In exact accord- 
ance with the design of Lord Lucan, Colonel Hodge 
at once determined to attack the column in flank.J 
As soon as he had cleared the south of the vineyard 
he changed direction ; and, despite the close presence 
of the enemy, he boldly continued to advance in what 

* This should be jive, and the name of Brigstocke, the acting adju- 
tant, should be inserted at the head of the list of subalterns — Note to 
Zd Edition. 

f Colonel Hodge, I believe, had a theory that the practice of march- 
ing with drawn swords was only fitted for peace-time. 

% I do not say in obedience to the order, because I cannot undertake 
to say that it had yet been received. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



141 



may be called marching order ; for, still keeping his C H A P. 
regiment in open column of troops, he began to move up < — ^—j 
the hillside by the somewhat narrow space that there 
was between the easternmost fence of the vineyard 
and the (proper) right flank of the column. He said 
to Captain Forster, who commanded his right squad- 
ron, ' Forster, I am going on with the left squadron. 
* As soon as your squadron gets clear of the vineyard, 
' front, form, and charge/ Hodge went on in person 
with his left squadron ; and soon, both that and For- 
ster's squadron were wheeled and formed up with 
their front towards the enemy's right flank. The 
operation by which the whole regiment thus fronted 
to its right with each squadron at once in its place, 
was made easy and quick by the circumstance that it 
had been moving ' left in front/ 

The enemy made a hasty endeavour to cover the 
flank thus threatened by an evolution from the rear 
of his masses ; but the troops which he moved for the 
purpose were too late to complete their manoeuvre, 
and Colonel Hodge had the satisfaction of seeing that 
although Eussian horsemen engaged in this attempt 
were interposing themselves between him and the flank 
of the column, they might be struck in the midst of 
their effort by the charge of his 4th Dragoon Guards. 

In the days of his boyhood when Hodge steered 
the ' Victory/ there used to be a terse order which 
readily came to his lips as often as the boat crossed 
the river ; and now when he had come to be so 
favoured by Fortune as to find himself at the head of 
his regiment with no more than a convenient reach 



142 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, of fair galloping ground between him and the flank 
> — ^— < of the enemy's column, the remainder of the business 
before him was exactly of such kind as to be ex- 
pressed by his old Eton word of command. What 
yet had to be done could be compassed in the syl- 
lables of : — ' Hard all across/ * 

For bringing under one view the several positions 
from which the Eussian column was destined to be 
assailed by our supports, it was convenient to begin 
with the regiment on our extreme left; but it must be 
understood that these movements of the 4th Dragoon 
Guards took place at a time somewhat later than that 
which might appear to be assigned to them by the 
order they have in the narrative. 
The The Eoyals had received no order to leave their 

position under the steeps of the Chersonese ; t but 
from the ground where the regiment stood posted, the 
preparations for the then impending fight could be 
easily seen ; and apparently it was assumed that the 
fact of the regiment being left without orders must 
have sprung from mistake. At all events, the 
Eoyals moved rapidly off towards the scene of the 
combat. 

In its approach to the scene of the fight, this regi- 
ment was coming on past the south of the vineyard 

* The direction given by the steerer to the crew of an Eton longboat 
when about to cross the river. 

f The brigade comprised ten squadrons, whilst Lord Raglan's order 
for the movement towards Kadikoi extended to only eight. This differ- 
ence, I take it, was the cause of the Royals having been left without 
orders ; but the emergency created by the sudden appearance of the 
Russian cavalry was regarded as a full warrant for the movement. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



143 



when Scarlett's ' three hundred/ having already de- CHA P. 
livered their charge, and being part buried in the col- — ^t— ' 
umn, the right wing of the enemy was all at once 
seen by the Koyals to be folding inwards, as though 
it would envelop the Greys. The sight of the 
enemy's cavalry deliberately wheeling in upon the 
rear of a British regiment, kindled so vehement a 
zeal in the hearts of the Eoyals, and so eager a desire 
to press instantly forward to the rescue, that there 
was no ceremonious preparation for a charge. A 
voice cried out, ' By God, the Greys are cut off ! 
' Gallop ! gallop ! ' Then there broke from the Koyals 
a cheer. Their trumpets sounded the gallop, and 
without for a moment halting, but endeavouring to 
' form line on the move/ the regiment sprang hastily 
forward. Indeed, the movement of the first or right 
squadron was so rapid that the left squadron could 
not perfectly come up with it, and the regiment made 
its attack in short echelon of squadrons. In this 
order, but with its ranks imperfectly formed, the regi- 
ment advanced at a gallop against the right flank and 
rear of the in-wheeling line. In spite of this onset, 
the Kussian wing continued its wheeling movement so 
long as to become defenceless on its extreme right. 
At the near approach of the Eoyals, that outer part 
of the wheeling line which was the most immedi- 
ately exposed to its assailants broke off from the rest ; 
and then the horsemen who had composed it were 
either flying or involved in confusion, or else — for 
several of the Eussian hussars made bold to do thus 
— were valorously advancing and making their way 



144 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, round the flank of the advancing English ; but mean- 
VI 

< — ^— *> while, by all this confusion, the inner or left remnant 
of the Eussian wing was so far covered from the at- 
tack, and even, it would seem, from the sight of the 
Royals, that it went on with the execution of the 
orders received, and continued to wheel inwards. 

The English regiment carried on its attack to a 
point at which it was just brought into contact with 
the broken extremity of the enemy's deployed line ; 
and a few sabre-cuts were exchanged ; * but farther 
than this the Eoyals did not push their advantage ; 
for the discomfiture of a part of the wing did not 
visibly involve the great column; and' considering 
the disordered state of the regiment, Colonel Yorke 
judged it prudent to rally his men before they were 
thrown into contact with a huge mass of troops still 
preserving their thickest formation. Accordingly, and 
at a time when only a few of its pursuing troopers 
had as yet ridden in amongst the retreating horse- 
men, the regiment was halted and ordered to re-form. 

Besides Colonel Yorke, who commanded the regiment, 
the officers present with the Royals at the time of its re- 
forming were Major Wardlaw,t Captain Elmsall, Cap- 

* Of the Royals I understand two were there wounded, of whom one 
was Sergeant Pattenden. 

t Major Wardlaw (now Colonel Wardlaw, the officer now commanding 
the regiment), though suffering from illness, had found strength enough 
to enable him to be with the regiment in the earlier part of the day, bat 
afterwards his sickness increasing, he had been forced to go back to 
camp. Afterwards, whilst sitting or lying down outside his tent-door, 
he saw our Heavy Dragoons with the • enemy in their front, and then 
instantly mounting his charger (which he had caused to be kept saddled 
with a view to such a contingency), he found means to reach the scene 
of conflict at the time when the regiment was re-forming. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



145 



tain George Campbell, Captain Stocks; and the follow- CHAP, 
ing subalterns — namely, Pepys, Charlton, Basset, Glyn, < — ^— * 
Coney, George * Kobertson, Hartopp, and Sandeman. 

An exploit performed, at this time was observed 
with some interest by numbers of the Light Brigade 
men, then gazing down at the fight. Troop-sergeant- 
major Norris of the Koyals, having been separated by 
a mischance from his regiment, was a little in rear of 
it, and hastening to overtake his comrades, when he 
found himself beset on open ground by four Eussian 
hussars, who must have ridden past the flank of our 
people. Norris, however, though having to act alone 
against four, found means to kill one of his assailants, 
to drive off the rest, and to capture the charger of the 
slain man. 

Farther towards our right, and so placed as to The 5th 
be in support to the Greys, though somewhat out- Guards, 
flanking their left, there stood the 5th Dragoon 
Guards. It was commanded by Captain Desart Bur- 
ton ; and the rest of the officers then acting with the 
corps were Captain Newport Campbell, Captain Inglis, 
Lieutenant Halford, Lieutenant Swinfen, Lieutenant 
Temple Godman (the adjutant of the regiment), 
Cornet Montgomery, Cornet Neville, Cornet Ferguson, 
and Cornet Hampton. The regiment had at length 
been formed up in line ; but its two squadrons were 
in inverted order, the first being on the left, and the 
second on the right. For a moment there seemed to 
be a question whether it might not be prudent to 

* This name should have been written Gilbert Robertson. — Note to 
Second Edition. 



VOL. IV. 



K 



146 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, transpose the squadrons into their respective places, 
• — ^—s but the pressure of time was too cogent to allow of 
long ceremony ; and, without first correcting its order 
of formation, the regiment moved forward. It had 
to pass over ground much obstructed by remnants of 
the Light Brigade camp ; Captain Campbell's charger, 
for instance, was overthrown by a picket-rope which 
crossed his line of advance ; and I believe that, though 
Neville owed his mortal wound to the lance of a Cos- 
sack, he had first been brought to the ground by one 
of these camp obstructions. 

At this time, the inner, and still unbroken part of the 
enemy's right wing had already wheeled in over an 
arc represented by an angle of nearly sixty degrees ; 
and, strange as the statement may seem, there still is 
sound proof of the fact that the obedient Muscovite 
troopers continued thus to wheel inwards till they had 
come to be obliquely in front of the column, and with 
their backs towards our 5 th Dragoon Guards. It is 
true that amongst these wondrously submissive horse- 
men there were some who so far fronted as to find 
means of hastily using their carbines against our peo- 
ple ; but it seems to be established that a portion, at 
least, of the in-wheeling line did really suffer itself to 
be charged in rear by the 5th Dragoon Guards. It 
could not but be that many of the Russians would be 
cut down or unhorsed when the English regiment 
charged in, as it did, amongst troopers thus rendered 
defenceless by the nature of their own manoeuvre ; 
but, on the other hand, very many were protected 
from the edge of the sword — nay even, indeed, from its 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



147 



point — by the thickness of their long, ample coats ; CHAP, 
and, upon the whole, there were numbers of horsemen, - — ^— ' 
some English, some Kussian, who thronged up against 
that part of the column where the Scots Greys were 
eddying back ; so that Eussians belonging to the The mei- 
column, and Kussians belonging to the right wing, wasform- 
and men of the Scots Greys and men of the 5th partoftL 
Dragoon Guards, were here forced and crowded to- tacked by 
getherin one indiscriminate melley.* Nor were these Dragoon 
the only components of the crowd. Men of the same Guards - 
brigade, but having tasks assigned them elsewhere, 
broke away from their duties in camp, and — some 
of them on invalid chargers — found means to gallop 
up into the fight. Amongst these, two regimental 
butchers, each busy with his sword, were conspicuous 
because of their shirt-sleeves. Moreover, there could 
be seen here and there a man of the Light Brigade, 
who, for sake of the strife, had stolen away from his 
regiment, and was mingled with the rest of the com- 
batants. 

And, at the part of the column thus assailed by the change in 

tlx© bccti* - 

5th Dragoon Guards, there was a change in the bear- ing of the 
ing of the combatants — a change brought about, it ants, 
would seem, by exceeding weariness of the sword- 
arm, but in part too by another cause. After three 
or four minutes of a new experience, it proved that a 

* In strictness, perhaps, this word should be spelt 'mesley,' or 
'masly' (not 'medley,' a word from another root), but I follow the 
mode which obtains in ' pell-mell.' The word is so familiar to Eng- 
lishmen of different classes of life, and so well derived from old French, 
that there is no reason for allowing it to be supplanted by any such 
mincing substitute as 'melee.' 



148 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, man could stow accustomed, as it were, to the con- 

VI . 
< — ^—^ dition of being in a throng of assailants, and take 

his revel of battle in a spirit as fond as at the begin- 
ning, yet by this time less anxious, less fierce, less 
diligent. Those truculent Scots, who had cut their 
way in without speaking, were now, whilst they fought, 
hurrahing. The din of sheer fighting had swelled into 
the roar of a tumult. 

Alexander Miller, the acting Adjutant of the Greys, 
was famous in his regiment for the mighty volume of 
sound which he drove through the air when he gave 
Efforts the word of command.* Over all the clangour of 
rally the arms, and all the multitudinous uproar, his single 
voice got dominion. It thundered out, ' Eally ! ' 
Then, still louder, it thundered, e The Greys ! 1 1 

The Adjutant, as it chanced, was so mounted that 
his vast, superb form rose high over the men of even 
his own regiment, and rose higher still over the throng 
of the Eussians. Seized at once by the mighty sound, 
and turning to whence it came, numbers of the Scots 
saw their towering Adjutant with his reeking sword 
high in the air, and again they heard him cry, 'Eally ! ' 
— again hurl his voice at ' The Greys ! ' 

He did not speak in mere vehemence, like one who, 
although he cry e Eally ! ' means only a war-cry or 
cheer. He spoke as an officer delivering the word of 

* I dare not speak of the distance at which, as I learn, his voice could 
make itself heard, but I may so far venture as to say that the distance 
was such as to be computed by the mile. 

f It seems that, even when this regiment is addressed in the vocative 
case, it is customary to retain the definite article, and address it as 
' The Greys.' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



149 



command. But to rally ? — the Greys to rally \ It C HA P . 
well might seem a desperate task to attempt what ' — ^— J 
troops call a 'rally' in the midst of the enemy's 
thickset squadrons, but the greater height of the Scots 
Greys and their chargers as compared with the in- 
vaded mass, made it possible for the taller horsemen, 
now seeing one of their officers, and hearing his 
word of command, to begin to act together. And, the 
notion of using the lessons of the barrack-yard in the 
midst of the Kussian host was carried yet further. 
When troop-officers are forming and dressing a line 
they, of course, front towards their men ; and since it 
was difficult for a man in the melley to know which 
might be the front, and which might be the rear, there 
was the more need of guidance. The Adjutant deliber- 
ately fronted down the slope in the direction by which 
the Eussians had advanced, and threw into his closing 
monosyllable the giant strength of his voice when he 
shouted, ' Face — me ! ' By many of the men of his 
regiment he was seen. By many more he was heard, 
And now, also, on the right of the Adjutant, the young 
Cornet Prendergast, raised high above the ground by 
the great height of his charger, and on the other side 
Clarke, the leader of the 1st squadron — Clarke still 
rode bare-headed and streaming with blood — could 
be seen with their swords in the air, undertaking to 
rally the Greys. Men under this guidance tried to 
gather together the best way they could in a throng ; 
and, by facing towards the Adjutant (as the thunder 
of his voice had enjoined), they began to show the 
rudiments of a front. 



150 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



The order 
given by 
Scarlett to 
Major 
Conolly. 



Hunt's 
squadron 
of the 
Inniskil- 



The offi- 
cers pre- 
sent with 
the squad- 
ron. 



When Scarlett despatched his Brigade-Major, with 
orders to bring up some troops which might more or 
less confront the vastly outflanking strength of the 
enemy's left, he supposed that Major Conolly would 
have to execute this order by riding back in search of 
the 4tb Dragoon Guards or the Koyals ; and it was 
not without pain that he thought himself compelled 
thus to exile a gifted cavalry officer from the fight 
during several critical minutes. Major Conolly, how- 
ever, found means to see the object of the order 
attained without losing his share of the combat ; for, 
glancing in that direction opposite to the Eussian left 
in which it was judged to be of vital need to have an 
English force posted, he saw, and saw with great joy, 
that one of the red squadrons was already there. 
Quickly reaching the force, he found that it was the 
1st squadron of the Inniskillings, commanded by Cap- 
tain Hunt, who, however, was under the orders of 
Major Shute, the field-officer then present with this 
part of the regiment. Conolly was instantly sure that, 
under the direction of these officers, the squadron 
would be so wielded as to do all that was possible to- 
wards the execution of Scarlett's wish, and he at once 
determined to act with it in the approaching fight. 

With the exception of its leader, no captain was 
present with this squadron, and only one subaltern — 
namely, Lieutenant Wheatcroft, who commanded one 
of the troops. The other troop was commanded by a 
non-commissioned officer — that is, by the troop ser- 
geant-major."* 

* I have now ascertained that the name of this non-commissioned 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



151 



Major Shute was an officer of a high order of ability, CHAP, 
and Captain Hunt, the squadron-leader, had not only > — Z^—^ 
prowess of that quiet and resolute kind which most ^jj t ° e r 
inspires trust and devotion, but had also that priceless Captain 
qualification for the wielding of cavalry which is 
gained by experience of war. 

At the moment of the surprise, as we know, this Position 
squadron of the Inniskillings had been farther ad- squadron, 
vanced on the road towards Kadikoi than any other 
of Scarlett's troops ; and it resulted that the position 
of the squadron at the time when the ' three hundred ' 
had wheeled into line, was in the direction of Scar- 
lett's right rear. The squadron was so placed as to be 
fronting, not full, but obliquely towards the enemy's 
left flank. 

When the Russian left wing had not only disclosed Major 
the intent to wheel inwards, but even had effected order, 
good progress in the execution of the manoeuvre, 
Major Shute ordered Hunt to charge it. 

Free from the camp impediments which had ob- The 
structed Scarlett's 'three hundred,' and afterwards the Hunt's ° f 
5 th Dragoon Guards, the interval which divided this f the™ 
squadron of the Inniskillings from the enemy was all {j^8 Skll ~ 
good galloping ground, and Hunt moving forward at 
the head of his squadron, and then rapidly increasing, 
and still increasing, its swiftness, attained, before the 
moment of impact^ to a full charging pace. The roar 
of the fight going on was calculated to overlay other 
sounds, and the thick, stiff elastic herbage which 

officer was Sergeant-Major Shiel. He received seven wounds, and 
three of those wounds were severe ones. 



152 



THE BATTLE OE BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, clothed the soil, was well enough fitted to muffle to 
VI 

- — ^1- ✓ the utmost the tramp of horses ; but even after giving 
full weight to these circumstances, it is scarce pos- 
sible to hear of what happened without more or less 
of astonishment. 

The troops of the Eussian left wing had not only 
continued their in- wheeling movement, but had carried 
the manoeuvre so far that, at the moment of the im- 
pact, they had their backs turned towards the squadron 
which charged them. Piercing their line like an arrow, 
Captain Hunt shot through it, and was followed in 
the next instant by the squadron behind him, which 
came crashing on upon the rear of the wheeling horse- 
men, consigning some to slaughter, and driving in the 
rest of them, a helpless, unresisting throng, upon the 
front of the column. So swift and so weighty had 
been the charge that, if so one may say, it welded men 
into a mass. Of the tightness with which horsemen 
were locked in the melley, some idea may be formed 
if I say that, when Conolly found his arms laden and 
weighed down by the dead body of a Russian trooper 
which had fallen across them, he was for some time 
prevented from casting off his unwelcome burthen by 
the density and close pressure of the throng which en- 
compassed him on all sides. But although in this 
melley, a horseman, of his own will, could not alter 
his relative place, yet that throng, of which he had 
come to be for the moment an almost passive com- 
ponent, was not altogether motionless. It heaved ; 
and, this time, as has been already learnt — for we 
come once again to a moment before spoken of — the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



153 



swaying of the mass which before had been to and CHAP. 

fro, was perceptibly in the up-hill direction — in the ^ ^1 — , 

direction that had been given it (as some imagined) 
by the impact of Captain Hunt's charge, and the 
weight of the fugitive troops driven in upon the 
front of the column. It would seem, therefore — for 
otherwise the swaying of the mass in an up-hill direc- 
tion could hardly have gone on so continuously — 
that already the pressure of the squadrons which 
formed the centre and rear of the column must have 
been loosening. 

And this might well be ; for in another quarter, The 4th 
the attack of the 4th Dragoon Guards was now tak- Guards! 1 
ing effect. Captain Forster, with the right squadron 
of the regiment, had already charged into the melley 
which was gathered on the right flank of the column ; 
whilst farther up the hillside, but acting in the same 
direction against the enemy's right flank, Colonel 
Hodge, having charged in person at the head of the 
left squadron of his regiment, and having burst his 
way into the column, was driving fast through it 
from flank to flank — driving through it without losing 
men — and so faithfully working out the old precept 
of * hard all across ! ' as to be already on the point of 
emerging from the mass of the Eussian cavalry at a 
spot opposite to the one by which he had entered it. 

Seeing that the column through which Hodge thus 
rended his way had been pierced and riven from the 
first by Scarlett's 'three hundred,' that already it 
had been brought to such a condition as to allow of 
the 4th Dragoon Guards cutting through it without 



154 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA.. 



CHAP, getting harmed, and that both its huge wings had 
- — ^ — - been shattered and driven in confusedly upon its 
front and flanks by the Koyals, by the 5th Dragoon 
Guards, and finally by Hunt's Squadron of the 
Inniskillings, it would be rash to assign to the 
attack of any one corps the change which now 
supervened ; but, whatever the cause, that resistance 
to all rearward movement which had long been ex- 
erted by the enemy's deep -serried squadrons now 
began to relax. Less and less obstructed, and less 
closely locked than before, the melley or throng that 
had been jammed into a closely locked mass by the 
last charge of the Inniskillings continued to heave 
slowly upwards against the slope of the hill. Pre- 
sently the Kussians who had hitherto maintained 
Thebreak- their array caused or suffered their horses to back 
column. 6 a little. The movement was slight, but close fol- 
lowed by surer signs. The ranks visibly loosened. 
In the next instant, the whole column was breaking. 
Retreat of In the next, all the horsemen composing it had dis- 
body. persed into one immense herd, and — still hanging 
together as closely as they could without hindrance 
to their flight — were galloping up the hillside and 
retreating by the way they had come. 

Nearly at the moment when the column began to 
break, General Scarlett had at length cut his way 
through it. He had entered it, as we know, at the 
centre of its front, and at the head of the Greys. The 
part of the column from, which he emerged was its left 
flank ; and those of his people whom he then had the 
nearest to him were men of the Inniskilling Dragoons. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



155 



We saw that even during the fight, and whilst CHAP. 

VI 

still involved in the throng, the Scots Greys had — J— 
endeavoured to rally ; and some way to their left, but ^ t *^ tpts 
in the same alignment, the Eoyals (having numbers of j?J *ai°y S 
men of other regiments intermixed with their squad- 
rons) were still re-forming their ranks ; but no other 
part of our Heavy Brigade had even attempted as 
yet to recover its state of formation ; and as it was 
inferred that the enemy might have some force on the 
other slope of the ridge which would be ready to act 
in support, our officers were more eager to rally their 
scattered troopers than to encourage pursuit. Indeed 
almost at the instant of emerging from the depths of 
the column — he came out of it panting and vehement 
as though fresh from violent bodily effort*' 5 " — Colonel 
Hodge had laid his commands on the two first trum- 
peters he could see, and caused them to sound the rally. 

Notwithstanding this desire to effect a rally at The pur- 
suit of the 

once, many of our dragoons pursued the retreating enemy by 
enemy for some distance, but not with their strength goons, 
in such a state of coherence as to be able to make the 
victory signal by extensive destruction or capture of 
prisoners ; and being happily under good control, they 
were checked and brought to a halt before coming 
under the fire which awaited them from the slopes 
of the Fedioukine Hills. 

The troop of horse - artillery which accompanied Fire of 
the Light Brigade had by this time some pieces in artlllery ' 

* Lord Lucan, who, as we saw, had ridden up by the (proper) left 
flank of the Russian column, saw Hodge in the act of coming out from 
it. He also saw General Scarlett emerge. 



156 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. 
VI. 



Results of 
the fight 
between 
the Rus- 
sian cav- 
alry and 
Scarlett's 
Brigade. 



battery which, discharged a few shots at the retreating 
horsemen ; * and under the special directions of Sir 
Colin Campbell, a like fire was directed against them 
from two of Barker's guns. 

It seems that in this singular combat our Heavy 
Dragoons had 78 killed and wounded — the Eussians 
a much larger number ;t but it is not by counting 
the mere losses on either side that this cavalry fight 
can be judged. On the one hand, our troopers had 
so great an advantage from their longer, more com- 
manding reach, and, on the other, the Eussians were 
so well protected by their shakoes and their heavy 
grey coats, that the carnage resulting from the actual 
fight bore no proportion to the scale, the closeness, 
and the obstinacy of the conflict ; but also, for want 
of the mere slaughtering and capturing power that 
can be exerted in pursuit by squadrons which are 
not in a state of dispersion, the English dragoons 
were prevented from conveying to the world any 
adequate notion of the victory they had gained. 
When they had been rallied and re-formed, they not 
only disclosed no abounding exultation, but even 
evinced a sense of disappointment which bordered 



* The battery of position, No. 4, under the orders of Lieutenant, now 
Major H. B. Roberts, of the R. M. Artillery, also delivered fire with 
effect upon the retreating horsemen. — Note to Second Edition. 

+ I have no sufficient means of giving the losses which the Russians 
sustained in this fight. I can say, however, that (according to General 
de Todleben) the whole loss which the Russians sustained in the battle 
was 550, and that, according to Liprandi, their loss in infantry was 
comparatively small, their loss in cavalry, heavy. I may add, that their 
loss in cavalry, whatever it was, must have resulted almost entirely 
from their fight with our Heavy Dragoons. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



157 



on anger. The men found that at the close of what CHAP. 

. VI 
had seemed to them a life-and-death struggle, the - — ^-~> 

enemy had at last been enabled to gallop off without 
sustaining grave loss, and their inference was that they 
had been fighting almost in vain. They were mistaken. 
Without having wrought a great slaughter or captured 
a host of prisoners, they had gained so great an ascend- 
ant that of all the vast body which is known to have 
been opposed to them there was hardly one squadron 
which afterwards proved willing to keep its ground 
upon the approach of English cavalry. 

But if the men of our Heavy Brigade were them- The admi- 
selves ill content on account of the seemiug barren- excited 
ness of their victory, it was otherwise with the exploit of 
spectators who had witnessed the fight — who had seen Brigade.* 
the few wrestling with the many and finally gaining 
the day. The admiration with which the French had 
watched the fight was expressed by them with a gen- 
erous enthusiasm. ' It was truly magnificent ' — so 
spoke a French general officer who had witnessed the 
fight — ' it was truly magnificent ; and to me who 
could see the enormous numbers opposed to you, the 
£ whole valley being filled with Russian cavalry, the 
' victory of the Heavy Brigade was the most glorious 
' thing I ever saw/ * The moment the Eussian column 
was seen to be broken, our dragoons were greeted 
from afar by a cheer from the 93d Highlanders ; and 
before the Brigade had completed its rally, Sir Colin 



* Colonel (now General) Beatson was the officer to whom the French 
General — I cannot at this moment give his name — addressed the above 
words. 



158 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Campbell galloped up. When he had come close to 
• — ^ — - the Greys, he uncovered and spoke to the regiment. 

' Greys ! gallant Greys ! ' he said, according to one of 
the versions, ' I am sixty-one years old, and if I were 
' young again I should be proud to be in your ranks/ 
Afterwards, accosting Lord Lucan, he declared to him 
that the oldest officer could not have done better. 
The French sent to Lord Lucan their tribute of enthu- 
The con- siastic admiration ; and an aide-de-camp came down 

gratnla- 

tion ad- from Lord Eaglan with two gracious syllables for 
General Scarlett conveyed in the message, ' Well done ! ; 
by Lord Supposing that General Eyjoff was properly obeyed, 
it would seem that he became chargeable with seve- 
ral grave errors, and in particular, — 
Comments 1st, For massing his squadrons in such a way as to 
fight. be virtually fighting without any force detached from 
his first line — in other words, without any c sup- 
( ports/ 

2d, for his halt. 

3d, For attempting and continuing the wheeling 
movement of his deployed wings in the face of the 
English ' supports." 

Anterior to the actual bodily fighting, there was a 
phase of the engagment which seems to be deserving 
of remembrance. I speak of the moments when the 
Eussian column of horse, with all its vast weight, 
was moving down the hillside against Scarlett's few 
horsemen, then suddenly caught in their march, and 
hastening under great stress of time to prepare a 
front for the enemy. The admirable composure then 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



159 



evinced by our people of all ranks must have been CHAP, 
seen by the enemy, and perhaps may have governed — ^— - 
the issue, by inducing him to come to a halt. 

A commander of horse, in general, is accustomed 
to seek his victory by gathering a great momentum, 
and directing the force of his onset against some 
object more or less fragile — as, for example, against a 
body of infantry drawn up in a hollow square ; but 
these were not the conditions under which Scarlett 
had to attack ; and accordingly, his feat has hardly 
supplied a good instance of what men commonly 
mean when they speak of a cavalry charge. On the 
contrary, the physical impossibility of overthrowing 
the enemy by the mere shock of a cavalry charge was 
the very circumstance which gave to this fight its 
peculiar splendour. When Scarlett rode straight at 
the centre of a hanging thicket of sabres and lances 
which not only outflanked him enormously on his 
right hand as well as his left, but confronted him too 
with the blackness of squadrons upon squadrons in 
mass, he did not of course imagine that by any mere 
impact of his too scanty line he could shake the 
depths of a column extending far up the hillside ; 
but he thought he might cleave his way in, and he 
knew that his people would follow him. He survived 
the enterprise, and even proved to the world that 
close fighting under the conditions which he accepted 
might be a task less desperate than it seemed; but 
his hopefulness, if hopefulness he had when he drove 
his horse into the column, could hardly have been 



160 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, warranted, at the time, by the then known teachings 
> — of human experience."' 5 " 

The time By the judgment of Lord Lucan — not tested, how- 
by C th e ed ever, by the hand of the watch — it has been com- 
puted that from the moment when General Scarlett 
commenced his charge, to the one when the Russian 
mass broke, the time was about eight minutes. 

In order that the Allies should be able to reap 
from this fight of our Heavy Brigade any fruits at 
all proportioned to its brilliancy, it was necessary 
that they should have had on the ground some fresh 
and unbroken squadrons which would pursue the re- 
treating mass, and convert its defeat into ruin, or at 
least into grievous disaster. Were no such squadrons 
at hand % 



* What is the closest historical parallel that can be found for the 
charge of Scarlett's three hundred ? 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



161 



CHAPTER VII. 



Whilst this combat of Scarlett's was raging, people CHAP. 

VII 

witnessed, hard by, a more tranquil scene, and one > — ^-L-> 
which indeed was so free from all the tumult of 
battle as to offer a kind of repose to eyes wearied 
with gazing at strife. Overlooking the flank of the 
Eussian cavalry in its struggle with Scarlett's bri- 
gade, and at a distance from the combatants which 
has been computed at 400 or 500 yards, there 
stood ranged in two lines, a body of near 700 men. 
They all of them bore arms ; they all wore military 
uniforms ; and each man was either mounted, or else 
had his charger beside him. They were troops of 
the same nation as Scarlett's combating regiments. 
In truth, they were nothing less than the famous The Light 
Light Brigade of the English; but, strange to say, Retime of 

,1 ni t p ii i* Scarlett's 

these superb horsemen were engaged tor the time engage- 
as spectators, maintaining a rigid neutrality in the 
war which they saw going on between Russia and traiity. 
our Heavy Dragoons. 

Of the impatience with which our Light Cavalry impati- 
chafed when they found themselves withheld from the brigade ; 
fight, some idea perhaps may be formed by anyone who 

VOL. IV. l 



162' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, recalls to his mind the far-famed exploit they were 
VII • 

« — ^— ' destined to be performing at a later hour of the same 
day. It was not without a grating sense of the con- 
trast that, whilst thus condemned to inaction, they 
saw Scarlett hotly engaged ; and although the com- 
mander of the Light Brigade, in giving vent to his 
mortification, used one of those cavalry forms of 
speech which express approval or endearment in 
words of imprecation, it is not for that the less 
true that the sentiment which really blended with 
his natural vexation was one of admiring and gener- 
i ord° f ous env y* Lord Cardigan was himself the public 
Cardigan, informant who adduced in a court of justice this 
picturesque proof of his feelings — ' We were specta- 
' tors/ says one of his witnesses, ' of that encounter; and 
' those who heard and saw Lord Cardigan during the 
6 tim£ that was going on, will not easily forget the cha- 
' grin and disappointment he evinced when riding up 
c and down our line. He constantly repeated, " Damn 
' " those Heavies, they have the laugh of us this day." ' 
The sur- As may well be supposed, this abstention of our 
which the Light Cavalry was observed by the Russians with 
of the ahty surprise and thankfulness, by the Headquarters Staff 
Brigade of the English with surprise and vexation, by the 
served French with surprise and curiosity. If Canrobert and 
those of his people who looked down upon the plain of 
Balaclava grew warm and enthusiastic in their admira- 
tion of Scarlett's exploit, they were all the more ready 
with questions, surmises, and reasonings when they saw 
that, during the fight thus maintained by one of our 
two cavalry brigades against a largely outnumbering 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



163 



force, the other brigade remained motionless- — nay, CHAP, 
even in part dismounted. The impressions of the - — 
French in regard to the English lie deposited for the 
most part in layers or strata, disclosing the periods of 
the several formations • and if the nature of the com- 
ments which were uttered could be inferred from 
known habits of thought and of speech, it might be 
found that the theory put forward by any French 
officer as serving to account for the phenomenon was 
adopted in general by his comrades of the same age, 
and repudiated by such of them as were either much 
older or much younger ; but whether, with their grey- 
headed colonel, the more aged officers of a regiment 
made sure that the Count of Cardigan was a great 
feudal chief, with a brigade composed of his serfs and 
retainers, who, for some cause or other, had taken dire 
umbrage, and resolved, like Achilles, that his myrmi- 
dons should be withheld from the fight ; or whether, on 
the authority of the major — less aged, though equally 
confident — they held that the feudal system in Eng- 
land had been recently mitigated, and that the true 
solution of the enigma was to be found in the law of 
' Le Box' — the law making it criminal for an English- 
man to interrupt a good fight, and enjoining that sin- 
gular formation which Albion called ' a ring — what- 
ever, in short, might be the variety of special theories 
which these French observers adopted, there was one 
proposition at least in which all would be sure to agree. 
All, all would take part in the chorus which asserted 
that the English were a heap of ' originals/ 

Yet, amongst the French officers thus striving to 



164 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, solve the enigma, one at least was inclined to trace 
VII ... 

- — ^—^ the neutrality of our Light Brigade to a cause of mis- 
carriage which, far from being exclusively English, 
has often condemned the great cavalry forces of the 
Continent to the imputation of losing opportunities. 
No less clearly than any of his comrades the Vicomte 
de Noe perceived the strange error which had been 
committed ; but he traced it to a want of that initia- 
tive power which enables a general of cavalry to seize 
his occasion. * 

The cause When we turn from the surmises of the French to our 
sledge* 11 * English sources of knowledge, and there seek to find 
Brigade at out the spell which palsied Lord Cardigan s squadrons, 
s^ariett's f we learn that the brigade was kept where it stood by 
me g nt §e ' the interpretation which its chief had been putting upon 
Lord Lucan's parting instructions. The Brigadier 
had been left in the position he occupied with direc- 
tions to defend it against any attack ; but other 
words accompanied this direction ; and upon the whole, 
after giving to the terms of the order, as gathered by 
him at the time, the best construction which his un- 
aided judgment would furnish, Lord Cardigan hap- 
lessly came to the conclusion that it was his duty to 
abstain from attacking the enemy in flank whilst our 
Heavy Dragoons were attacking him in front, and to 



* ' Kepulsed with loss,' says the Vicomte, ' it [the Russian cavalry] 
' regained the heights, where it might have been annihilated if the 
1 English Light Cavalry, under the orders of Lord Cardigan, had 
£ charged it during its retreat. There was the occasion, there should 
4 have been exercised the initiative of the cavalry general, and later in 
e the day it was made apparent that bravery is no sufficient substitute 
' for initiative.' 



PLATE 4. 




F A C SIMILE 

(reduced) 

'tched by Lord Cardigan with a "view to 
r the "particular position which he says in 
had been ordered- on no account to leave" 
'against any attack of Russians" 



:.y sketch must be looked upon simply as a 
entation made by Lord Cardigan, and 
one adopted by the Author. 




A Kilfiie SSon EdmT 



rr gag ; 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



165 



suffer the Eussian cavalry to retreat from before him CHAP. 
— nay, almost, one may say, to retreat across his front > — ^Ji: — ^ 
— without undertaking to pursue it.* 

Lord Lucan, of course, did not mean that his Light 
Cavalry should meet a conjuncture like the one which 
actually occurred by remaining in a state of inaction ; 
but how far the mistake may have derived a seeming 
warrant from any obscurity or from any misleading 
tendency in his instruction, that, of course, is a ques- 
tion dependent on the words that were used.t If no 

* See the accompanying sketch-plan representing Lord Cardigan's 
idea of the respective positions of the Eussian cavalry and of the two 
English brigades. The plate is upon a reduced scale, but is, in other 
respects, a facsimile of the drawing which Lord Cardigan prepared for 
me. The special purpose for which he prepared the drawing was to 
show what the position was which he considered that he had to defend. 

f Lord Cardigan's statement is : 4 1 had been ordered into a parti- 
* cula*r position by Lieutenant- General the Earl of Lucan, my superior 
' officer, with orders on no account to leave it, and to defend it against 
' any attack of Russians. They did not, however, approach the posi- 
tion.' — Affidavit of Lord Cardigan. Lord Lucan's version of the order 
he gave is this — ' I am going to leave you. Well, you'll remember that 
' you are placed here by Lord Eaglan himself for the defence of this 
' position. My instructions to you are to attack anything and every- 
' thing that shall come within reach of you, but you will be careful of 
' columns or squares of infantry.' Lord Lucan, I believe, considers that 
when the Russian cavalry advanced up the North Vallev to within a 
few hundred yards of Lord Cardigan, when they moved (obliquely) across 
Lord Cardigan's front, and proceeded under his eyes to attack English 
regiments, they did ' approach the position,' nay did actually invade it, 
thereby bringing about the exact contingency under which Lord Cardi- 
gan (according to his own version of the instructions) was ordered to 
defend the position ' against any attack of Russians.' On the other 
hand, it may be thought that even according to Lord Lucan's version 
of his own words, they were such as, in the judgment of a peace-service 
man like Lord Cardigan, might not unnaturally appear to have a 
fettering tendency. Such phrases as 'placed here,' and 1 defence of this 
' position] followed by the instruction to attack whatever might 'come 
' within reach,' were plainly dangerous. I know not on what ground 



166 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, such palliation shall be established, it must be judged 
v— — ' that Lord Cardigan s abstention resulted from an 
honest failure of judgment, from an undue confidence 
in himself, and from an imperfect acquaintance with 
the business of war, but also from strong sense of 
duty — from that same sense of duty, remember, which 
was destined to be his guide in the hour then coming, 
and to carry him down the North Valley on a venture- 
some, nay desperate service. Still, the miscarriage of 
Lord Cardigan's endeavour to construe the order aright 
did actually result in the spectacle which we have 
just been witnessing ; and, it being apparent that the 
inaction to which he imagined himself condemned 
was calculated to be gravely injurious to the public 
service, it seems useful to inquire whether the mishap 
was one of those incidents of war which carry no 
lesson, or whether, on the contrary, it can be traced 
to a malpractice on the part of the Home Government 
which might be avoided in future wars. 
The kind The task of endeavouring to put a right construc- 
encewhLh tion upon orders given in war, and especially in battle, 
dency to IS often an anxious and difficult one, yet so enor- 
melfrom mously important that the honour, nay, the fate of 
sensible a nation, may depend upon the way in which it is 
tbnfon" discharged. Now, it would seem that there is one 
kind of experience which, if long continued, has a 

Lord Lucan thought that Lord Raglan placed the cavalry where he did 
in order to charge it with the defence of this position. I have always 
understood that Lord Eaglan's object in bringing in his cavalry under 
the steeps of the Chersonese was — not to defend any position, but — to 
have it in hand, and prevent it from becoming perniciously entangled 
in combats. 



order* 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



167 



peculiar tendency to disqualify an officer for the duty CHAP, 
of putting sensible constructions upon orders concern- • — *~> 
ing the business of war. The experience I speak of 
is that which is possessed by an officer who has served 
many years in a standing army without having had 
the fortune to go through a campaign. Such a man, 
during his whole military life, has been perpetually 
dealing with fixed conditions and petty occurrences 
which are mostly of a kind that can be, in a measure, 
provided for beforehand by even that limited forecast 
which the rules of an office imply ; and as soon as his 
training has taken its effect to the utmost, he may be 
said to represent the true opposite of what a com- 
mander should be who has to encounter emergencies. 
So long as soldierly duties are confined to mere pre- 
paration and rehearsal, they can be effectively per- 
formed by the industrious formalist ; but in war all 
is changed. There, the enemy interposes, and inter- 
poses so roughly that the military clock-work of peace- 
time is ruthlessly shattered. As a guide for con- 
struing momentous orders delivered in the hour of 
battle to a general of the peace-service training, the 
experience of the barrack-yard becomes a snare. His 
new theatre of action is so strange, so vast, and so 
dim — for he now has to meet the unknown — that 
unless he can rise with the occasion, throwing open 
his mind and changing his old stock of ideas, he be- 
comes dangerous to his country — becomes dangerous, 
of course, in proportion to the extent of the command 
with which he has been entrusted. Supposing the 
natural capacity equal, there is no stirring missionary, 



168 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, no good electioneerer, no revered master of hounds, 

VII • . 

> — ^— > who might not be more likely to prove himself equal 

to the unforeseen emergencies of a campaign than the 
general officer who is a veteran in the military pro- 
fession, and, at the same time, a novice in war. If 
indeed a general who has hitherto had no experience 
of war is still in so early a period of his life as to have 
unimpaired the natural flexibility of youth, he may 
quickly adapt his mind to the new exigency; but when 
a State gives high command to an officer who is not 
only encased with military experience all acquired in 
peace-time, but is also advanced in years, it fulfils 
at least two of the conditions which are the most 
likely to bring about misconstructions of even the 
plainest orders : and if to these precautions the Gov- 
ernment adds that of taking care that the selected 
General shall be a man of a narrow disposition and a 
narrow mind — a man cleaving to technicalities and 
regulations with a morbid love of uniformity — then, 
indeed, it exhausts a large proportion of the expedi- 
ents which can be used for insuring miscarriage. 

England, ruling as she does over various and wide- 
spread dependencies, is so often forced into warlike 
operations of more or less magnitude, as to be free 
from the predicament of having at her command no 
war-tried officers. Therefore, when, with such means 
at her disposal, she still trusts important commands 
to her peace-service officers, she has not the plea of 
necessity. She acts in sheer wantonness. She needs, 
as it were, a strong swimmer, and hastens to take a 
man who never has happened to bathe. She wants 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



169 



a skilful ship s captain to maintain her strength on CHAP 
the ocean, and for this purpose chooses a bargeman • — ^-^> 
who has plied thirty years on canals. 

As a warning instance of miscarriage resulting 
from this evil practice, Lord Cardigan's mistake has 
great worth ; because it was so obviously occasioned 
both by his experience, and by his want of experience 
— by the abundant military experience which had 
gathered upon him in peace-time, and by the want of 
that other experience which men gain in war. Many 
an officer long versed in peace-service might have 
made an equivalent mistake ; but, on the other hand, 
it is probable that in such a conjuncture as that in 
which Lord Cardigan found himself, no man who 
ever had wielded a squadron in the field would have 
thought himself condemned to inaction. 

The example was made the more signal by an incident 
incident which occurred at the time. Whilst Lord the error 
Cardigan sat in his saddle, expressing, under cavalry naT- 6 Slg 
forms of speech, his envy of the Heavy Dragoons, 
and adhering to that hapless construction of Lord 
Lucan s order, which condemned him, as he thought, 
to a state of neutrality, he had at his side an officer, 
comparatively young, and with only the rank of a 
captain, who still was well able to give him that 
guidance which, by reason of his want of experience 
in war, he grievously, though unconsciously, needed. 
Captain Morris, commanding the 1 7th Lancers, one by bring- 
of the regiments of the Light Brigade, and then in public con - 
his thirty-fourth year, was a man richly gifted with quaimca- 
the natural qualities which tend to make a leader Lord Car- 



170 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, of cavalry, but strengthened also by intellectual 
v— cultivation well applied to the business of arms, and 
Captain Ud c l°tlied, above all, with that priceless experience 
Moms. which soldiers acquire in war. After having first armed 
himself with a portion at least of the education which 
Cambridge bestows, he had served with glory in 
India. In 1843 he had been present at the battle of 
Maharajpore. In 1846 he fought at the battle of 
Buddiwal. At the battle of Aliwal in the same year 
he was wounded whilst charging with his regiment 
into a mass of Sikh infantry. He was in the battle 
of Sobraon ; he crossed the Sutlej, and entered La- 
hore with the army. When opportunities of gain- 
ing warlike experience were no longer open to him, 
he returned to the labour of military study, and 
carried away from Sandhurst ample evidences of his 
proficiency in higher departments of military learn- 
ing. Captain Morris was one of those who might 
have been wisely entrusted with an extended com- 
mand of cavalry. Few could be more competent 
to point out to Lord Cardigan the error he was 
committing — to show him in two words how to con- 
strue Lord Lucan's order, and to explain to him 
that when cavalry has to hold a ' position/ it is not, 
for that reason, forced to abstain from resisting the 
enemy."* 

Perceiving with vivid distinctness the precious 
opportunity which the fortune of war was offering, 



* I say i resisting,' because the advance of the Russian cavalry was 
an actual invasion of the English position — nay, even of the very Gamp- 
ing-ground of the Light Brigade. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



171 



Morris eagerly prayed that the Light Cavalry might CHAP, 
advance upon the enemy's column of horse; or, if that , 
could not be conceded, then that he at least, with his 
regiment, might be suffered to undertake an attack. 
That he imparted his desire to Lord Cardigan, and 
that Lord Cardigan rebuffed him, I cannot doubt ; * 
but for the present purpose — for the purpose, namely, 
of illustrating the mischief of entrusting high com- 
mand to a veteran of the peace-service unversed in 
war — the sworn statement of Lord Cardigan is suf- 
ficiently instructive. After speaking of Captain 
Morris's alleged interposition, he goes on to say 
that e Captain Morris never gave any advice, or 

* made any proposal of the sort ; ' that ' it was not 
' his duty to do so; ' and that he f did not commit 
'such an irregularity/ 

When the Oxford undergraduate stopped short of 
presuming to snatch his fellow-student from a watery 

* I do not forget (as will presently be seen) that Lord Cardigan has 
denied this ; hut my proofs are ample : and indeed Lord Cardigan, 
though he places the incident at a moment when it had become too 
late to act with effect, has himself acknowledged to me that Captain 
Morris sought to push forward with his regiment, and that he (Lord 
Cardigan) stopped the attempt. Both with respect to the fact itself and 
the time of its occurrence, Captain (afterwards Colonel) Moms has been 
explicit. In a letter addressed by him to the Horse Guards he wrote 
thus : — ' Having read .... a letter from Major Calthorpe, in which 
' he throws between Lord Cardigan and myself the settlement of the 
' question as to whether I asked Lord Cardigan, on the 25th of Oc- 
' tober 1854, to attack the Bussian cavalry in flank at the time they 

* were engaged with the Heavy Brigade, and which Lord Cardigan 
' most positively denies, I wish to declare most positively that I did 
'ask Lord Cardigan to attack the enemy at the time and in the 
'manner above mentioned.' See also the conclusive testimony con- 
tained in the second affidavit of the Honourable Godfrey Charles 
Morgan filed in the suit of Cardigan v. Calthorpe. 



172 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, grave, on the theory that it was indecorous for one 
• — ^—^ lad to rescue another without having first been pre- 
sented to him, the objection was perhaps overstrained, 
but, at all events, it proceeded from the formalist who 
stood on the bank, and not from the one in the river. 
Here, more wonderfully — for Morris was willing, 
nay offered, to rescue Lord Cardigan from his error — 
it was the drowning man who, on grounds of a stiff 
etiquette, protested against being saved. 

If Lord Cardigan's idea of an irregularity' was 
upheld by the sanction of the Horse Guards, it must 
be acknowledged that our Home dispensers of mili- 
tary power had performed their task with a rare 
completeness. They found a man who was of an 
age, and endowed with natural qualities, highly 
favourable to effective command, who had had rich 
experience in the business of war, who had earned 
for himself a large share of glory in combats and 
pitched battles. Him they placed under a General 
fifty-seven years old, who, without any warlike ex- 
perience, still sincerely presumed himself competent 
to the exigencies of high command in the field ; and 
then they crowned their work by causing or allowing 
the army to understand that it would be an ' irregu- 
' larity ' for the man who had learnt war on the Sut- 
lej to tender his opportune counsel to the one who 
had come from Hyde Park. 

A brigade of light cavalry drawn up in two lines on 
good turf, and employed in the occupation of gazing 
upon a fight sustained against a great stress of num- 
bers by their comrades the Heavy Dragoons ; the man 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



173 



of the Sutlej entreating that the brigade might ad- CHAP, 
vance to the rescue, but rebuffed and overruled by • — 
the higher authority of the man from the banks of 
the Serpentine who sits erect in his saddle, and is 
fitfully ' damning the Heavies ' instead of taking part 
in their fight — these might seem to be the creatures 
of the brain evoked perhaps for some drama of the 
grossly humorous sort ; but because of the sheer truth, 
their place is historic ; and if comedy seems to result, 
it is comedy prepared in Whitehall. It is comedy 
too of that kind which sometimes teaches and warns. 
By the will of our military authorities at home, the 
man versed in war was placed under the man versed 
in quarrels. Lord Cardigan had been charged to 
command ; Captain Morris had to obey. The exag- 
gerations men look for in satire were forestalled and 
outdone by the Horse Guards. 

In its actual bearing upon events, the neutrality of 
the Light Cavalry proved less hurtful than at first it 
seemed likely to be ; because Scarlett's dragoons, after 
all, found means to achieve their victory without 
help from the other brigade. If Scarlett's ' three 
' hundred ' had been overwhelmed and destroyed, both 
the terms of Lord Lucan's instruction and the inac- 
tion maintained by Lord Cardigan would have been 
cruelly judged. As it was, the miscarriage, however 
pernicious in its other consequences, did at least bring 
glory upon our arms, because it withheld from Scar- 
lett's dragoons that support which must have dimmed 
their victory by making it more easy of attainment. 
It is true that if the Light Brigade, although abstain- 



174 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



digan. 



CHAP, ing from the thick of the fight, had been suffered 

VII . 
• — at the right moment to advance in pursuit, it might 

possibly have effected captures by a swift and skilled 
use of the moments during which such a work was 
practicable ; but any force pursuing the enemy beyond 
a short distance must have very soon come under 
fire from the guns on the Fedioukine Hills. 
Lord Lu- Lord Lucan, as may well be supposed, was bitterly 
sage S oT es ' vexed by the inaction of his Light Brigade, and at 
Lord Car^ the close of the combat he sent one of his aides-de- 
camp with a message which enjoined Lord Cardigan 
in future, whenever his Divisional General might be 
attacking in front, to lose no opportunity of mak- 
ing a flank attack. The message added, that Lord 
Lucan would always be ready to give a like support 
to Lord Cardigan.* 

I have traced the fault up to its sources. If ever 
there were to be uttered a taunt which should impute 
the inaction of Lord Cardigan to any cause worse 
than mistake, this short, cogent answer would follow, 
' He led the " Light Cavalry charge." ? t 

. * It is right to say that Lord Cardigan has questioned this, but to 
add, that proof which I must regard as conclusive is in my possession. 

f There is a curiously strong chain of testimony which goes to show 
that at or towards the close of the Heavy Cavalry fight, the Light 
Brigade was moved down into the South Valley, and brought into 
the rear of the ground from which our Heavy Dragoons had made 
their attack ; but counter-testimony of a very cogent kind opposes 
itself to this conclusion. The decision of the question, although it 
might have a personal bearing of some interest, is not important in 
any other point of view. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



175 



CHAPTER VIII. 



From the easternmost ledges of the Chersonese, the CHAP. 

. . VIII 

chiefs of the two Allied armies, together with great - — 

numbers of their people, had been keenly looking J^g? ag " 

down, as we learned, upon the combat of Scarlett's stantane - 

7 ' -t ous per- 

dragoons ; but the bulk of these spectators — first ^*^ of 
anxious and afterwards enraptured — were content to P hase iuto 

x which the 

regard the encounter as a trial of cavalry prowess re- battle had 

° J x passed. 

suiting in proportionate glory ; and, so far as I know, 
Lord Raglan was the only officer in the field whose 
swift instinct informed him at the moment of the way 
in which this isolated engagement of horsemen might 
be brought to bear upon the issue of the battle. Years 
after that day, when in times of peace and amity 
the narratives, the maps and the plans of the once 
warring nations were collated and studied, it at last 
became easy enough for the French and the English 
to understand the extent of the change which had 
been wrought in the enemy's position by the victory 
of our heavy dragoons; but it was given to Lord 
Raglan to perceive all this at the time. 

The defeat of the Russian cavalry carried with it, of The 
course, the retreat of the powerful artillery which the that was 



176 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, horse had escorted: and not only was the English 

VIII .... . 

« — ^ camp and its vicinity now free from even the sight of 

™he S posi- an assailing force, but all that part of the North Valley 
Russkns 116 whicn divided tne Fedioukine Heights from the line 
ffatof de * of the Turkis]l redoubts was left without troops. The 
cav * change wrought by Scarlett's dragoons was therefore 
such, that whereas the Eussians, half an hour before, 
had had a miniature battle array which enabled them 
for the moment to take the offensive and penetrate 
even home to the English cavalry camp, they were 
now all at once reduced to what one may call two 
weak columns — two weak columns having the whole 
breadth of the North Valley between them, no longer 
connected with one another except by their rear, and 
each of them so placed as to be impotently protrud- 
ing its small narrow head in the face of the divisions 
coming down from the Chersonese, and debouching 
in strength upon the plain. An array which before 
might have been likened to the closed fist of the 
pugilist, was changed, all at once, to a hand with the 
two centre fingers retracted and the other two fingers 
protruding." 5 " Lord Eaglan perceived that in the com- 
pass of those brilliant minutes which had been used 
to such purpose by Scarlett's dragoons, they had done 
the main part of his appointed task by almost win- 
ning a battle for him without the aid of a single foot- 
soldier or horseman sent down from the main Allied 
Lord Rag- camp. What he instantly sought to do was, to seize 
pose. On the victory which this cavalry fight seemed to open 
to him by proceeding at once to the recapture of the 
Causeway Heights. 

* The diagram on the next page may aid the elucidation. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



177 



The arrangements for the recovery of the heights CHAP, 
had been made, as we saw, long ago, several hours be- - — 
fore the occurrence which had now so much lightened 
the task ; and, if the requisite marches of our infantry 
divisions had attained completion, Sir George Cath- 
cart, at the head of the 4th Division, would have been 
ready to advance against the Arabtabia* Eedoubt by 
the line of the Causeway ridge; whilst H.R.H. the 
Duke of Cambridge with the 1st Division would have 
supported the attack by moving along the South Val- 
ley. The Duke of Cambridge, it would seem, had 
lost no time in obeying the order, and was as far in 



N 




H 



A B— Jabrokritsky's infantry and artillery disposed on the slopes of the Fediou- 
kine Hills. 

C D— Liprandi's infantry and artillery posted along the line of the captured 
Turkish redoubts, where the English guns remained. 

C— The position of the Odessa regiment. 
E E— The defeated Russian cavalry, with a Cossack battery in front of them. 

P— Lord Cardigan's Light Cavalry Brigade. 

G— General Scarlett's Heavy Cavalry Brigade. 

H— The direction by which French and English reinforcements were ap- 
proaching. 
J K— The North Valley. 

* The redoubt also called Number Three. 



VOL. IV. 



M 



178 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, advance towards his assigned place as Lord Raglan 

VIII ? 
• — expected him to be ;* but Cathcart unhappily [had 

failed to march by the route prescribed to him, and] 
was not yet on his appointed ground.! Lord Eaglan 
long before had been expressing his astonishment at 
not seeing Cathcart's battalions in march, and had 
sent messenger after messenger to endeavour to find 
where he was, and to learn the cause of his delay. It 
is true that, before the moment we speak of, Cathcart's 
Division had at length made its appearance, but it 
still had a good way to march before it could com- 
mence the intended attack. 

J And unfortunately the order directing Cathcart to attack 
was by him left unexecuted. When Cathcart had reached 
the Col, General Airey rode up to him, and said, ' Sir George 
' Cathcart, Lord Eaglan wishes you to advance immedi- 
' ately and recapture the redoubts.' The order was given 
very plainly, and Airey, after having delivered it, turned to 
the staff-officer who had carried Lord Eaglan's original orders 
to Cathcart, and said : ' You are acquainted with the position 
f of each redoubt, remain with Sir George Cathcart and show 
' him where they are/ 

After passing the empty redoubts, No. 6 and No. 5, and 
leaving some troops in each of them, Sir George marched on 
to the No. 4 redoubt, which was also unoccupied ; but there 

* He moved his infantry by a route not far south of the Woronzoff 
Koad, but his artillery descended by the Col. — Note to 3d Edition. 

+ The words placed within brackets should have been omitted. It 
is only, I believe, too certain that the non-appearance of Qathcart at the 
time expected was caused under the circumstances stated ante, p. 65 et 
seq. See also the statement above given, and the one added at p. 219 et 
seq. — Note to 3d Edition. 

X The foot-note ante p. 65 applies to this interpolation as well as to 
the one there occurring. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 179 

he came to a halt, deploying his infantry in two lines, and CHAP, 
causing it to lie down, at the same time directing his artil- t . 
lery to open fire upon the Arabtabia. The artillery officers 
soon pointed out that the range was too great to allow of any 
useful firing, and then, under Cathcart's direction, his rifle 
battalion went skirmishing towards the Arabtabia, but this 
was the utmost that Cathcart did towards obeying the order 
which had enjoined him to recapture the redoubts. 

Lord Raglan's vexation was great, for he felt all the 
evil of any delay in seizing the advantage which the 
fortune of war was offering. 

Being in this strait, and judging also, with what Circum- 
we now know to have been a true foresight, that under 
the weak chain of Eussian infantry columns which Lord 
stretched towards him endwise along the line of the determin- 
redoubts would prove somewhat soft to the touch, he pf a i°to P his 
determined, as he was entitled to do, to make an cavalry - 
appeal to his cavalry. He did not do this appa- 
rently because the cavalry arm was the one which he 
would most willingly have selected for his purpose 
if he had any freedom of choice, but because his in- 
fantry reinforcements were not yet far enough in 
advance, and the time was too precious to be lost. 
Be that as it may, he despatched to Lord Lucan a 
written instruction which in the subsequent contro- 
versies was generally called ' the third order/ It ran 
thus : c Cavalry to advance and take advantage of any The third 
' opportunity to recover the heights. They will be ° rder " 
' supported by the infantry which have been ordered 
' [to] advance on two fronts.'* Whilst directing that 

* It seems that in the original order the word 1 to ' was omitted — 
that there was what looked like a full stop after the word ' ordered ' — 



180 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, actual attacks against the enemy on the heights should 
^I^Ls be made to depend upon opportunity, this order, it 
should be observed, was peremptory and unconditional 
in requiring that our Gavalry should advance; and 
since it came, not from a distant commander, but from 
one who looked down upon the whole field, and had 
before his eyes all the requisite ingredients of a posi- 
tive resolve, it is difficult to see how the words could 
become open to misconstruction. 
Lord Lu- Lord Lucan, however, so read the order as to con- 
struction ceive it his duty to do no more for the moment than 
mount his cavalry, move the Light Brigade to another 
position hard by across the North Valley, and cause his 
Heavy Dragoons to remain on the slope of the rise there 
awaiting the infantry, which, to use his own language, 
6 had not yet arrived/ Having made these disposi- 
tions, Lord Lucan kept his cavalry halted during a 
period which he has computed at from thirty to forty 
minutes.'" If it be asked why, when ordered to ad- 
vance, he kept his cavalry halted during a period of 

and that the word ' advance ' was written with a capital A; bnt the copy 
which Lord Lucan afterwards furnished to Lord Eaglan was as given in 
the text, and I therefore imagine that, notwithstanding the clerical errors 
above mentioned, the order at the time must have been read aright by 
Lord Lucan. , The question seems to be unimportant, for the order is 
not made at all less cogent by reading it with its clerical errors uncor- 
rected. I should not have adverted to the matter if it were not that 
Lord Lucan — I do not see why — laid stress upon it in his speech ad- 
dressed to the House of Lords. The copy in my possession is in the 
handwriting of Lord Lucan himself, and was furnished by him to Lord 
Raglan. Therefore, for tlie purpose of proving the tenor of the instruc- 
tion really conveyed to the mind of Lord Lucan, the copy is evidently 
more authentic than the original. 

* By computations upon another basis this period is extended to fifty 
or fifty-five minutes. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



181 



from thirty to forty minutes, the answer is that he CHAP, 
reasoned. By choosing his way of proceeding — not - — 
because it was enjoined in terms, but — because he ima- 
gined it to be ' the only way that could [have] been 
6 rationally intended/ he effected an actual inversion 
of Lord Baglan's order, and persuaded himself that, 
instead of the cavalry advancing (as directed) with 
the prospect of being supported by the infantry, it 
was the infantry that ought first to advance, the 
cavalry acting only in support* The avoidance of 
delay, as we saw, was the very object which the Eng- 
lish Commander had in view when he resolved to 
appeal to his squadrons. In the mind of Lord Eag- 
lan, the length of the ground which still had to be 
traversed by his infantry was a reason for appealing 
to the cavalry arm ; whilst, on the other hand, Lord 
Lucan judged that that same length of ground was 
a reason for delaying his advance ; so that the very 
exigency which caused Lord Eaglan to desire the 
immediate aid of the cavalry was the one which 
induced Lord Lucan to withhold it. 

From the height which he had occupied during the 
whole morning, and with the officers of his Staff around 
him, Lord Eaglan watched for the moment when his 
cavalry, in obedience to the orders he had despatched, 

* Lord Lucan's own account of the way in which he attempted to 
construe this order, and of the mental process by which he attained his 
conclusion, is as follows : ' Lord Lucan having taken up the position 
' clearly directed was prepared to carry out the remainder of his in- 
1 structions by endeavouring to effect the only object, and in the only 
' way that could rationally [have] been intended — viz., to give all the 
' support possible to the infantry in the recapture of the redoubts, and 
' subsequently to cut off all their defenders.' 



182 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, would begin its advance, and lie watched with the 
' — expectation — an expectation which we now know to 
have been well founded — that the movement would 
cause the enemy to abandon his already relaxing hold, 
The impa- and give up the captured redoubts. He watched in 

tience and A \ 

anger vain. His cavalry did not move forward. From the 

amongst . # 

men of the way in which he saw the .Russians withdrawing their 

Headquar- __. •-n-i-i** 

ter staff, cavalry and their artillery, but also from the general 
aspect of the field, he knew that the minutes then 
passing were minutes of depression to the enemy, and 
therefore of opportunity for the English. It may well 
be imagined that at such a time the delayed compliance 
with his order was provoking ; and if his words and 
his features betrayed mere vexation, or, at all events, 
well-governed anger, the more youthful men of his 
Staff were not, I imagine, so careful as to suppress 
their murmurs of impatience and indignation. 

In this temper the Headquarter Staff were gazing 
upon the field, when some of them who had been 
pointing their field-glasses along the line of the Cause- 
way ridge perceived all at once, as they thought, that 
the enemy was bringing forward some teams of 
artillery horses, with the lasso tackle attached to 
them;* and they did not doubt — what otherwise 
seemed very probable — that the enemy, who was 
evidently preparing to retreat, must be seeking to 
carry off with him as trophies the English guns taken 
from the Turks. 



* I do not myself doubt the accuracy of the impression thus formed, 
though, in the absence of proof from Russian sources, I have avoided 
the language of positive assertion. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



183 



It seems probable that, before this, Lord Eaglan's CHAP, 
patience must have almost come to its end, and that, - — 
without any new motive, he would have presently- 
despatched a reminding and accelerating message to 
Lord Lucan ; but the announcement of the artillery- 
teams coming up to carry off English guns may well 
have determined his choice of the moment for taking 
the step, and it gave him an opportunity — which, even 
in a moment of anger, his kind and generous nature 
would incline him to seize — an opportunity of soften- 
ing the communication he had to make to the com- 
mander of his cavalry; for evidently the pressure 
which was to be applied to Lord Lucan, would be 
relieved in some measure of its inculpatory aspect, 
by basing the necessity for instant action upon a new 
fact. Accordingly, Lord Eaglan determined to repeat 
with increased urgency his hitherto disobeyed order 
for the advance of the cavalry, and to give to its com- 
mander a fresh motive for despatch, by pressing upon 
him the special object of endeavouring to prevent the 
enemy from carrying off the guns. This determination 
he expressed in terms intimating that the Quarter- 
master-General, who was close at his side, should give 
immediate effect to it. With a pencil, and a slip of The 
paper rested upon his sabretash, General Airey quick- < order/ 
ly embodied in a written order the instruction thus 
given him ; but before Lord Eaglan allowed the paper 
to go, he dictated some additional words which Airey 
at once inserted. The paper when thus completed 
became what men have called 6 the fourth order/ * 

* The terms of the order will be given in a later page. 



184 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. It was supposed that Major'" Calthorpe (an officer of 
-J^Hl^ the cavalry, and one of Lord Raglan s aides-de-camp), 
who chanced to stand ready and expectant, would be 
charged with the mission; but Lord Raglan called 
for Captain Nolan (the aide-de-camp of the Quarter- 
master-General), and specially desired that the order 
should be entrusted to him. 
Captain Nolan was no common man. Surrounded as he 
was at Headquarters by men of the world whose pleas- 
ant society must have been apparently well calculated 
to moderate a too wild devotion to one idea, he yet 
was an enthusiast — an enthusiast unchilled and un- 
shaken. His faith was that miracles of war could be 
wrought by squadrons of horse, that the limits of 
what could fairly be asked of the cavalry had been 
wrongly assigned, and that — if only it could be pro- 
perly constituted and properly led — the cavalry, after 
all, was the arm which should govern the issue of bat- 
tles. Then, adding to this creed an unbounded trust 
in the warlike quality of our troopers, he went on to 
conclude that the dominion of England in the world 
could best be assured by the sabre. He knew that 
where the question of cavalry excellence could be nar- 
rowed to a question of cavalry fighting, the English 
horsemen had been used to maintain their ascendant. 
The great day of Blenheim, he knew, was won in the 
main by our cavalry. With a single brigade of our 
cavalry at Salamanca, Le Marchant had cut through 
a French army. Nolan imagined that nothing but 
perverse mismanagement and evil choice of men pre- 

* This should be Captain Calthorpe. — Note to 3d Edition, 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



185 



vented England from having what he held to be her CHAP. 

, , • f • VIIL 

own — from having an ascendant among nations rest- 1 — * — ' 

ing mainly, or at all events largely, upon the prowess 
of her squadrons. Because this faith was glowing 
within him, Nolan had sorrowed and chafed at the 
unobtrusive part taken by our cavalry in the earlier 
days of the invasion. His journal, going down to the 
12th of October, lies open before me. It teems with 
impatience of the comparative inaction to which our 
cavalry had been condemned ; and discloses a belief — ■ 
a belief based apparently, in part, upon somewhat 
wild processes of reason — that the commander of our 
cavalry was the man upon whom blame should rest. 
Nolan must have been solaced, one may suppose, nay, 
enraptured, by the feat of our Heavy Dragoons ; but, 
on the other hand, he could not but be tortured by 
having to witness the inaction to which the Light 
Brigade stood condemned, whilst their comrades were 
fighting, and for this (if he knew not that the com- 
mander of our cavalry was present elsewhere) he pro- 
bably blamed Lord Lucan. Besides, at the moment we 
speak of, an occasion had been offering itself to the 
cavalry, and Lord Eaglari, as we know, had been or- 
dering it to advance without being yet obeyed. Upon 
the whole, therefore, it is easy to understand that 
Nolan must have been burning with anger and zeal. 

This was the officer to whom, by Lord Kaglan's 
direction, General Airey delivered the order. With- 
out having had their observance quickened, at the 
time, by any foreboding sentiments, men still remem- 
ber how swiftly the messenger sped on his errand. 



186 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. That acclivity of some seven or eight hundred feet, 
• — which divided our Headquarter Staff from the plain 
of Balaclava below, was of just such a degree of 
steepness that, whilst no rider of merely ordinary 
experience and boldness would like to go down it 
at a high rate of speed, and whilst few of those 
going slowly would refrain from somewhat easing 
the abruptness of the path by a more or less zigzag 
descent, the ground still was not so precipitous as 
to defy the rapid purpose of a horseman who had 
accustomed himself, in such things, to approach the 
extreme of what is possible. The special skill gained 
by such trials, with the boldness needed for using it, 
Nolan had in full measure ; and he was armed with 
cogent words for the man whom he had brought him- 
self to condemn as the obstructor of cavalry enterprise. 
Straight, swift, and intent — descending, as it were, on 
sure prey — he swooped angering down into the plain 
where Lord Lucan and his squadrons were posted. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



187 



CHAPTER IX. 



Although a period of some thirty, forty, or fifty CHAP, 
minutes had since elapsed, the position of the Eussian ^— 
army was still nearly the same that it had been j^Jfthe 
when Lord Lucan received his third order. * Jabro- Eussial ^ 

army at 

kritsky, with some 8 battalions, 4 squadrons, and 14 ^enNo 
guns, was established on the slopes of the Fedioukine i^^ach- 
Hills; and Liprandi, with his infantry and field- Lucan. 
artillery still lingering upon the sites of the captured 
redoubts, continued to protrude so far west along the 
chain of the Causeway Heights as to have one of 
his regiments — the regiment of Odessa — drawn up 
near the Arabtabia Redoubt ; t but the whole of his 
defeated cavalry had been withdrawn to a position so 
far down the North Valley as to be within a mile of 
the aqueduct, and about a mile and a half from the 
ground where Lord Lucan was posted. Drawn up 
across the North Valley, far in rear of the foremost 
Russian battalions, this large but discomfited body of 
horse connected Liprandi's corps-army with the troops 

* The order directing him to advance, and take advantage of any 
opportunity to recover the Causeway Heights. The words of the order 
are given at p. 179. 

t The Number Three Redoubt. 



188 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, of General J abrokritsky, but connected it only by the 
v— ' rear — connected it in such way that these forces to- 
gether were the three sides of an oblong, and could 
be likened, as we saw, to the hand of a man with the 
two centre fingers held back and the other two fingers 
extended.* The Odessa regiment formed the tip of 
that lesser finger which represents the extension of 
Liprandi's column along the chain of the Causeway 
Heights. Except at their rear, the two columns thus 
protruding were divided the one from the other by 
the whole breadth of the North Valley ; and without 
straying into surmise, it can be stated that they were, 
each of them, in a condition to be more or less com- 
pletely rolled up by an attack of cavalry, or even — 
without waiting for actual collision — by the mere 
sight of squadrons approaching, t 

Close in advance of the discomfited Eussian cavalry, 
and, like them, fronting up the North Valley, some 
twelve pieces of the Don Cossack ordnance were in 
battery. J 

At a later moment the smoke from this battery 
served to screen the horsemen behind it from the sight 
of the English ; but at the time now spoken of, this 
great body of Eussian cavalry, though a mile and a 

* See the diagram ante, p. 177. 

f For proof of this — proof by actual experiment — both as regards the 
column posted along the line of the Causeway Heights, and as regards 
the other column — the one on the Fedioukine Hills — see later pages 
narrating the retreat of the Odessa battalions and (subsequently) of the 
forces on the Fedioukine Hills which were put to flight by D'AUonville. 

X Eight pieces (i. e., one battery), according to Eussian official ac- 
counts ; but oral testimony shows that the real number of these guns 
was twelve— e., a battery and a half. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



189 



half off, could be descried by one standing on the CHAP, 
ground where Lord Cardigan was posted. From the - — 
effect of distance and close massing, the dusky, grey 
columns looked black. 

Besides the main body of the Eussian cavalry which 
thus stood drawn up in rear of the Cossack guns, Lip- 
randi now had at his disposal six squadrons of lancers 
under the command of Colonel Jeropkine ; * and 
these horsemen, divided into two bodies of three 
squadrons each, were so posted — the one in a fold 
of the Fedioukine Hills, and the other in a ravine on 
the side of the Causeway Heights — as to be able to 
fall upon either flank of any Allied troops which, in 
pressing Liprandi's retreat, might pursue it far down 
the North Valley. 

The subsequent course of events made it needless 
for Liprandi to say, in his public despatch, that after 
the combat with Scarlett's dragoons he had deter- 
mined to retreat ; but I regard it as certain that, intentions 
at the time now spoken of, he harboured no idea of di attiS 
defending the Causeway Heights against any real at- traction, 
tack. So far as concerned his liability to be assailed 
by infantry, he was able to prepare his retreat with a 
great deliberation ; for the march of the Allied bat- 
talions, creeping down from the Chersonese, was so 
open to the view of an adversary in the valley below, 
as to show him how long it must be before they could 
come into action ; but it was otherwise in regard to 
any attack undertaken by our division of cavalry ; and 
if the tenor of the instructions given to good troops 

* A force called the ' combined lancers.' 



190 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, could be safely inferred from their actual movements, 
• — ^— ^ it might be treated as certain that the Odessa battal- 
ions had orders to fall back upon the near approach 
of our squadrons. 
Lord Eag- Such seems to have been the position and attitude 
feet appre- of the forces now confronting Lord Lucan, and such 
the state the condition of things that Lord Kaglan had sought 
battle. to deal with by the order which Nolan was bringing. 
Lord Kaglan, as we know, had the advantage of see- 
ing all from high, commanding ground ; but nothing 
less than his peculiar and instinctive faculty for the 
reading of a battle-field could have enabled him at the 
instant to grasp the whole import of what to others 
was a dim, complex scene, devoid of expression, and 
to send down an order so closely adapted to the exi- 
gency as the one which he had despatched. To 
strike at the nearest of the Kussians that could be 
found on the Causeway Heights — or, in other words, 
at those Odessa battalions which stood ranged in front 
of the Arabtabia — this plainly was the task which (by 
reason of there being no infantry division yet present 
on the ground) invited the enterprise of our squad- 
rons ; and this also, we shall see, was the task which 
the order now coming enjoined. 
Two We shall see that the French, when so minded, could 

the D ene n direct an attack with their cavalry upon the head of 
Son avail- the Russian detachment now holding the Fedioukine 
attack* Hills — an attack somewhat similar in its nature to the 
one which Lord Raglan desired to have made against 
the tip of Liprandi's position on the Causeway Heights. 
In truth, there were two ranges of heights, each af- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



191 



fording to the cavalry of the Allies so good a point CHAP, 
for attack, that the one was decisively chosen — though - — ^ — • 
chosen in vain — by Lord Raglan, and the other by 
General Morris, the Commander of the French cavalry 
division.* 

But between the two ranges, thus each of them The valley 
inviting attack, there unhappily lay a smooth valley, between 
which offered itself to those horsemen who might them " 
either be weary of life, or compelled by a sense of 
duty to go down and commit self-destruction. 

Our Heavy Dragoons were on one of the slopes of Position 
the Causeway ridge, not far from the scene of their airy^at a " 
late victory. Lord Cardigan's brigade stood, drawn thls tlme * 
up in two lines, and so placed as to be fronting 
straight down the North Valley. 

Lord Lucan was sitting in the saddle in front of Arrival of 
his troops, and between the two brigades, when Nolan with the 
came speeding from the Commander-in-Chief, and < order* 1 ' 
made haste to deliver the paper with which we saw him 
entrusted. By pursuing a theory that he seems to 
have formed in regard to the real authorship of direc- 
tions from the English Headquarters, Lord Lucan had 
taught himself to mistake the channel for the source, 
and to imagine that General Airey must be often the 
originator of orders which, in fact, he was only trans- 
mitting. For this reason, and as tending, perhaps, to 
account in some measure for the way in which the 



* See again the diagram ante, p. 177, and the plan facing p. 188, 
taking care to understand that the first position of the Odessa regiment 
and of the batteries near it is the one applicable to this part of the nar- 
rative. 



192 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, order was about to act upon the mind or the temper 
- — t-^— ' of the general to whom it was addressed, it is worth 
while to remember two circumstances which would 
have been otherwise unimportant. The bearer of the 
order, as it chanced, was the aide-de-camp of General 
Airey, and its words were in General Airey 's hand- 
writing. 

The The order ran thus : € Lord Raglan wishes the 

'fourth . & 

'order.' ' cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, and try to 
' prevent the enemy carrying away the guns. Troop 
£ of horse-artillery may accompany. French cavalry 
' is on vour left. Immediate. 

(Signed) ' R. Airey/ 
Whether taken alone, or as a command reinforcing 
the one before sent, this order has really no word in 
it which is either obscure or misleading. By assigning 
e the guns' as the object, Lord Raglan most pointedly 
fixed the line of the Turkish redoubts as the direction 
in which to advance ; and it must not be said that 
the expression left room in the mind of Lord Lucan 
for a doubt as to what guns were meant. He well 
knew that the guns indicated by the c fourth order \ 
were the English guns taken in the forts — in the 
forts crowning those very ' heights ' which, more than 
half an hour before, he had been ordered to retake 
if he could ; * and no one, indeed, had more poignant 

* In the controversies arising out of the Light Cavalry charge, it 
was sometimes argued that there was a doubt as to what were ' the 
* guns ' to which the fourth order pointed ; and that circumstance makes 
it convenient to say and to prove, once for all, that Lord Lucan at the 
time knew very well what f the guns ' were. In his despatch addressed 
to Lord Raglan, on the 27th of October 1854 — the day next but one 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



193 



reason than Lord Lucan for knowing what the guns CHAP, 
were ; because he was the commander of the force , — ^_L_, 
which — rightly, perhaps, but not, of course, without 
mortification — had had to stand by and be witness 
whilst Liprandi effected the capture. 

If collated with the third order, the written words 
brought down by Nolan seem to come with accumu- 
lated weight and decisiveness. By the third order, 
the commander of our cavalry had been directed to 
advance, and take any opportunity of recovering the 
heights — those heights, be it remembered, where the 
enemy was posted with the seven English guns he 
had captured ; and now, by this fourth order, Lord 
Lucan — being requested to advance rapidly to the 
front, and try to prevent the enemy from carrying 
away the guns — was, for the second time, told that he 
must operate against the Russians on the Causeway 
Heights, and was furnished with a new and special 
motive for energy and despatch. Construed singly, 
the fourth order looks clear as day ; read along with 
the former direction it looks equally clear, but even 
more cogent ; for, when so considered, it appears to 
visit Lord Lucan with something like an expression of 
impatience and displeasure for having allowed more 
than half an hour to pass after the receipt of the 
third order without trying to recover the ' heights/ 

I am not without means of explaining how it be- 
after the battle — he writes : ' The Heavy Brigade having now joined 
' the Light Brigade, the division took up a position with a view of sup- 
' porting an attack upon the heights ; when, being instructed to make a 
' rapid advance to our front to 'prevent the enemy carrying the guns lost 
i by the Turkish troops in the morning, I ordered/ &c. 

VOL. IV. N 



194 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, came possible for Lord Lucan to raise a controversy 
— ^5— > upon the subject, but the circumstance which opened 
to him that opportunity was one occurring after the 
battle j* and the question we now have to treat is 
the meaning of the few written words which Nolan 
delivered. After applying to those simple words all 
such knowledge as I have of the relevant facts, I 
remain unable to learn how Lord Lucan could read 
the fourth order without seeing that it directed him 
to attempt an advance against the head of Lip- 
randi's column — against the head of the column then 
occupying those same Causeway Heights where the 
English guns had been taken. That the order thus 
interpreted was one which Lord Raglan had most 
perfectly adapted to the exigency of the hour, we 
shall by-and-by see valid proof. 
Lord Lord Lucan, however, had no sooner read this 

reception order, than there was awakened in his mind that 
order 6 spirit of hostile criticism which so marred his useful- 
ness as a subordinate. He proceeded to sit in judg- 
ment upon the command of his chief, and at once, 
without mercy, condemned it. His own account 
declares that he e read the order with much con- 
' sideration ' — ' perhaps consternation/ he says, e would 
' be the better word — at once seeing its impracti- 
' cability for any useful purpose whatever, and the 
■ consequent great unnecessary risk and loss to be 
' incurred/ The formation of this strangely decisive 
opinion upon the merits of an order sent him by his 
Commander-in-Chief, was rendered the more inap- 

* This will be shown in a later page. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



195 



propriate by the fact, that the Commander who sent CHAP, 
the order had the whole field of battle before him, • — 
whilst the critic who undertook to condemn it was 
so placed (upon the lower ground) that to him neither 
enemy nor guns were in sight ; * nor must it be for- 
gotten that this condemnation of the order was based 
upon its written words, unalloyed by any oral addi- 
tion, and stands earlier in point of time than that 
outbreak of Nolan's which was afterwards alleged as 
a warrant for the course pursued by Lord Lucan. 

But, unhappily, Lord Lucan did not content him- The aiter- 
self with a silent condemnation of the order. With tween 
the bearer of the note for his listener, he suffered can and 
himself to run out against the order of his chief. Nolan " 
Conceiving (erroneously) that he rightly understood 
the nature of the enterprise which Lord Kaglan's 
written words had enjoined, he urged the uselessness 
of such an attack, and the dangers attending it. t 

By this language apparently Lord Lucan challenged 
the messenger to encounter him in wordy dispute, and 
to defend, if he could, the order of the Commander- 
in-Chief. 

Nolan was a man who had gathered in Continental 
service the habit of such extreme and such rigid 
deference to any general officer, that his comrades 
imagined him to be the very last man who in that 
point would ever prove wanting; but perhaps that 

* ' Neither enemy nor guns being in sight.' — Speech of Lord Lucan 
in the House of Lords. 

t * After carefully reading the order, I urged the uselessness of such 
' an attack, and the dangers attending it.' — Lord Lucan's speech in 
House of Lords. 



196 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, very reverence for the military hierarchy which had 
• — ^— > hitherto rendered him so superlatively respectful to 
general officers, may have made him the more liable 
to be shocked by the reception which Lord Lucan 
was giving to the order of the Commander-in-Chief. 
Up to this moment, however, Nolan was not so un- 
governably indignant as to be guilty of more than 
imparting an authoritative tone to the Vords in which 
he answered Lord Lucan's denunciation of the order. 
' Lord Raglan's orders/ he said, ' are, that the cavalry 
6 should attack immediately/ 

Then quickly, and in a tone of impatience, caused, 
it seems, by what he imagined to be the absurdity of 
the attack thus enjoined, Lord Lucan said to Nolan, 
c Attack, sir ! attack what ? What guns, sir ? '* 

This angry, impatient question was destined to put 
an end to all prospect of eliciting from Nolan any 
quiet explanation of the mission with which he came 
charged, or any of that priceless information in regard 
to the enemy's position which, coming as he did from 
high ground, the aide-de-camp was well able to give. 
To use the homely, nay feminine, language which 
describes the action of the emotional forces, Lord 
Lucan's words set Nolan going. Throwing his head 
back, and pointing with his hand in a direction 
which Lord Lucan says confidently was towards 
the left-front corner of the valley, the aide-de-camp 
replied, 'There, my lord, is your enemy; there are 



* I here follow Lord Lucan' s written narrative. According to his 
speech in the House of Lords, his words were, 4 Where and what to 
'do?' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



197 



6 your guns/* Lord Lucan declares that these words CHAP, 
were addressed to him in a 'most disrespectful but < — ^— ' 
' significant manner ; ? t and, even without too much 
relying upon gesture or cadence of voice, it is easy to 
see that the apostrophe thus uttered by Nolan was 
almost in the nature of an indignant rebuke — an in- 
dignant rebuke inflicted by a captain upon a lieu- 
tenant-general in front of his troops. 

Just men will therefore acknowledge that this out- 
break of Nolan's was only too well fitted to enrage 
a general officer, and, by enraging him, to disturb his 
judgment ; but, apart from the effect they might pro- 
duce upon the temper of Lord Lucan, the gestures 
and the words of the aide-de-camp cannot fairly 
be wrought into the kind of importance which was 
afterwards assigned to them in controversy. The 
tenor of the apostrophe as recorded by Lord Lucan 
himself shows plainly enough that, by pointing gene- 
rally to the direction in which the enemy might be 
found, Nolan's gestures and words were meant to con- 
vey a taunt, not to give topographical guidance ; and 
this is made the more evident by taking care to 
remember that, when the words passed between the 
Lieutenant-General and the Aide-de-camp, they were 
neither of them on ground from which any Eussians 
could be seen ; for a messenger, who was so blindly 
placed at the moment as not to have a glimpse of the 

* Lord Lucan's written narrative and speech. As to this answer of 
Nolan's both those accounts agree ; but the speech, in saying how Nolan 
pointed, says, ' to the further end of the valley.' 

t Ibid. 



198 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, enemy, could hardly have so trusted to his own and 
- — ^ — ' his hearer's recollection of the local bearings as to 
think of attempting to designate a particular object 
of attack by pointing to its supposed position. 

The haze that was at one time engendered by con- 
troversy carried on with imperfect materials is yet 
further cleared off by observing the angle of difference 
between the route of the Causeway Heights, which 
Lord Eaglan had enjoined, and the fatal way down 
the North Valley. Vast and terrible as was the con- 
trast in point of consequences between taking the 
right way and taking the wrong one, the divergence 
of the one route from the other at the spot where 
Nolan made the gesture is represented by an angle of 
little more than twenty degrees. How is it possible 
that, where the difference of direction between the 
two routes at the point of departure had so moderate 
a width, and where also there was no sight of a 
Russian battalion or squadron to guide the eye or 
the hand, the aide-de-camp could have even seemed 
to forbid the one route or to enjoin the other, by the 
way in which — burning with anger — he tauntingly 
pointed to the ' enemy ' ? 

Nolan was one of the last men in the whole army 
who would have been capable of sending our squadrons 
down the North Valley instead of to the line of the 
heights; for, besides that he had come fresh from the 
high ground which commanded a full view of the 
enemy's position, and had just been gathering the true 
purpose of the orders from the lips of Lord Raglan 
himself, it so happens that he had a special and even 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



199 



personal interest in the recapture of the heights and CHAP, 
the guns, because he had maintained, and maintained - — ^— * 
for a time, against the judgment of some of our Engi- 
neers, that the construction of redoubts on the line 
of the Causeway Heights was an expedient measure. 
With the overstrained notions he had of what squad- 
rons of horse might achieve, he cannot have failed 
to ascribe the loss of a position thus specially valued 
by him to the general officer whom he long had 
regarded as the obstructor of all cavalry enterprise, 
and it may well be imagined that he came down 
exulting in the terms of an order which was framed 
for compelling Lord Lucan to try to recover the guns. 
The notion of his having intended to divert our cav- 
alry from the Causeway Heights and send it down 
the North Valley seems altogether untenable. 

If Nolan had been the bearer of a mere verbal 
order, then, indeed, this outbreak of his might have 
been in a high degree embarrassing. It might have 
forced Lord Lucan to consider whether he should send 
for further instructions, or whether he should instantly 
gallop up to a ground from which he could have such 
a survey of the enemy as to know where to attempt 
an attack ; or, finally, it might have put him to the 
task of endeavouring to winnow the communication 
addressed to him, by calming the over-excited aide- 
de-camp, and bringing him to say, if he could, how 
much of the words he had uttered were words really 
entrusted to him as a message by the Commander-in- 
Chief. But Lord Eaglan, as we saw, had provided 
that his directions should be set down on paper ; and 



200 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, after Nolan's outbreak, it became more than ever the 
IX 

< — ^— * duty of Lord Lucan to bend his mind faithfully to 
the written words of the order, examining as well as 
he could the condition of things to which it applied, 
and not forgetting that he had, all the while, in his 
hands another order, hitherto unexecuted, which en- 
joined him to advance and try to recover those same 
heights on which the guns spoken of in the ' fourth 
' order ' had been placed and lost by the Turks. ' 

Lord Lucan has since spoken and written as if his 
choice lay between the plan of sending the Light 
Cavalry down the North Valley, and the plan of not 
advancing at all; but the truth is, that neither in the 
e third order/ nor in the £ fourth order/ nor, lastly, in 
the taunting injunctions of the aide-de-camp, was there 
left any room to set up a doubt upon the question 
whether our squadrons should or should not advance; 
for by all these three channels alike there had come 
down strong mandates enjoining our cavalry to move 
forward and endeavour something against the enemy. 
I repeat that the fullest, the most generous, allowance 
ought to be made for the anger and consequent dis- 
turbance of mental faculty which Nolan's outbreak 
was but too well fitted to occasion ; but it is not for 
that, the less true that a steady perusal at this time of 
Lord Kaglan's written instructions by a cavalry com- 
mander of sound judgment, who was also unruffled in 
temper, and acquainted with the state of the field, 
must have led to an immediate advance of our squad- 
rons — to an immediate advance of our squadrons, not, 
of course, down the fatal North Valley, but against the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



201 



line of the Causeway Heights, where the English guns CHAP, 
had been lost. • — ^—^ 

How Lord Lucan should have dealt with an aide- 
de-camp who had made bold to apostrophise him in 
the way we have seen, that is a question which 
soldiers, with their traditional canons, will best deter- 
mine. Since the messenger came fresh from a spot 
where he had been hearing the directions of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, and looking down with full com- 
mand of view upon the position of an enemy invisible 
from the low ground, he could not but be fraught 
with knowledge of almost immeasurable worth ; and 
apparently the immediate interests of the public 
service required that an effort should be made to 
undo the mischief which had been caused by pro- 
voking his indignation, and endeavouring to bring 
him back to such a degree of composure as to allow 
of his imparting what, only a few minutes before, he 
had been hearing and seeing. On the other hand, 
the due maintenance of military subordination is, of 
course, transcendently important ; and it has been 
judged, as I learn, by men held to be of authority in 
such matters, that after the utterance by Nolan of 
his last taunting words, Lieutenant-General Lord 
Lucan should have put the captain under arrest. The 
course least susceptible of a rational defence was that 
of treating Captain Nolan's indignant apostrophe as a 
word of command from Headquarters, and regarding 
the scornful gesture which accompanied his words as 
a really topographical indication. 

This last course, however, as I understand him, is 



202 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, the one which Lord Lucan took : for, as soon as he 
IX 

- — had heard the taunting words, and marked the insult- 
can's de- m & g es ture 3 he determined to govern his action, not 
tion aina " exclusively by the written instructions which he held 
in his hand, but in part by the angry and apparently 
rhetorical apostrophe of the excited Captain. Nay, in 
spite of the two written orders, one pointing to the 
' heights/ and the other to the ' guns ' on those heights, 
as the object of the enterprise, he determined to fol- 
low what he judged to be the direction of Nolan's out- 
pointed arm as a guiding indication of the quarter in 
which the attack should be made. 

Dividing the Causeway Heights (where Lord Bag- 
Ian desired to attack) from the line of the Fedioukine 
Hills (where D'AUonville was destined to charge), there 
opened, as we saw, that North Valley where riders 
seeking their death— without themselves being able 
to strike in attack or defence for the first full mile of 
their road — might nevertheless run the gauntlet be- 
tween two prepared lines of fire, having always before 
them for a goal — which some of the survivors might 
touch — the front of a Eussian battery, and the whole 
strength of KyjofTs squadrons.* Towards this valley, 
as we saw, Lord Lucan thought Nolan was pointing 
when he uttered his taunting apostrophe. 

So Lord Lucan now proceeded to obey what he 
judged to be the meaning of the ' fourth order/ as 
illustrated by the aide-de-camp's words and gesture. 



* This statement is not too extensive ; for Jeropkine's Lancers were 
not under General Ryjoff, the officer commanding the bulk of the Eus- 
sian cavalry. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 203 

Believing that it had really become his duty to send CHAP, 
a force down the North Valley, he selected Lord Car- * — ^— 
digan and the Light Brigade as the man and the men 
who must first be offered up in obedience to the sup- 
posed commands of Lord Eaglan. At a trot and 
alone, he rode off to the ground in front of the 13th 
Light Dragoons, where Lord Cardigan sat in his saddle. 

Lord Lucan now personally imparted his resolve LordLu- 
to Lord Cardigan. There is some difference between to Lord 
the impressions that were formed of . this interview Cardlgan ' 
by Lord Lucan on the one hand and Lord Cardigan 
on the other; Lord Lucan believing that with the 
' fourth order ' in his hand he imparted its contents, 
or at all events the main tenor of it, to Lord Car- 
digan, and directed him ' to advance/ without in 
terms enjoining an ' attack ; ' whilst Lord Cardi- 
gan s statement is that he was ordered 6 to attack 
■ the Eussians in the valley about three-quarters of 
' a mile distant with the 13th Light Dragoons and 
4 the 17th Lancers.' * 

Lord Lucan's idea as to the way in which this 
direction of his ought to have been executed is as 
follows : — He says : 6 After giving t to Lord Cardi- 

* Private memorandum in Lord Cardigan's handwriting, and by him 
forwarded to Lord Eaglan 27th October 1854. I prefer this to Lord 
Cardigan's subsequent account, as being earlier — within two days of the 
battle — and being also a statement deliberately prepared for the Com- 
mander of the Forces. The ' three-fourths of a mile ' was, oi course, 
estimate only, and it applied to an extent of ground which was really 
more than a mile and a quarter. The two regiments which he men- 
tions as those with which he had attacked were the troops constituting 
his first line. 

f He does not mean that he handed the paptr to Lord Cardigan, but 



204 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. ' gan the order brought to me from Colonel * Airey 
v — v ~ ' by Captain Nolan I urged his Lordship to advance 
' steadily, and to keep his men well in hand, t My 
' idea was that he was to use his discretion and act 
e as circumstances might show themselves ; my opin- 
' ion is that keeping his four squadrons under perfect 
e control he should have halted them so soon as he 
' found that" there was no useful object to be gained, 
' but great risk to be incurred ; it was clearly his 
' duty to have handled his brigade as I did the 
' Heavy Brigade, and so saved them from much use- 
6 less and unnecessary loss/ 

Lord Cardigan did not so understand the task 
which was devolving upon him. From the way in 
which his brigade was fronting at the time, he con- 
sidered that an indefinite order to advance was an 
order to advance down the valley against the far dis- 
tant guns and black masses of cavalry which were 
seen to be drawn up across it ; and whatever were 
the words really used, Lord Cardigan certainly under- 
stood that without assailing either of the enemy's two 
protruded columns he was ordered to run the gauntlet 
between them for a distance of more than a mile, 
with the purpose of then charging the battery which 
crossed the lower end of the valley, and charging it 
moreover in front. 

that he either read it over to him, or gave him the tenor of it. Accord- 
ing to Lord Cardigan, no such communication took place. 
* He means General Airey. 

f The way in which Lord Lucan handled the Heavy Brigade in the 
North Valley will be seen in a later page. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



205 



Understanding that he was thus instructed. Lord CHAP. 

IX 

Cardigan judged it right to point out the true import • — ^— * 
of an order to advance down the valley. So, on 
hearing the words of his Divisional General, he 
brought down his sword in salute, and answered, 
c Certainly, Sir; but allow me to point out to you 
6 that the Kussians have a battery in the valley in 
' our front, and batteries and riflemen on each flank/ * 
Lord Lucan, after first expressing his concurrence in 
what he gathered to be the tenor of Lord Cardigan s 
observation, went on to intimate — he shrugged his 
shoulders whilst speaking — ' that there was no choice 
* but to obey/f 

Then, without further question or parley, Lord 
Cardigan tacitly signified his respectful submission to 
orders, and began that great act of military obedience 
which is enshrined in the memory of his fellow- 
countrymen. He turned quietly to his people and 
said : ' The brigade will advance ! ' 

Before the two Generals parted, Lord Lucan 
announced to Lord Cardigan his determination to 
narrow the front of the Brigade by withdrawing the 
11th Hussars from the first line, and causing it to act 
in support. Unless Lord Lucan's memory deceives 
him, he also enjoined Lord Cardigan ' to advance 

* Lord Lucan' s belief is that Lord Cardigan's warning pointed only 
to the forces on the Fedioukine Hills, and not to those in front or those 
on the right flank. 

f He said, according to Lord Lucan, * I know it, but Lord Eaglan 
1 will have it. We have no choice but to obey/ According to Lord 
Cardigan, Lord Lucan said, i I cannot help that ; it is Lord Eaglan' s 
' positive orders that the Light Brigade attacks immediately.' 



206 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP; ' very steadily and quietly/ and to * keep his men 

— ^— ' i well in hand/* 

It has been judged, that although the observation 
ventured by Lord Cardigan in answer to Lord Lucan's 
first words of instruction had somewhat the character 
of a remonstrance, it still was amply warranted by 
the occasion ; and this, as I gather, was the opinion 
entertained by the Commander-in-Chief. When Lord 
Raglan gave the tenor of the remonstrance in a private 
letter addressed to the Duke of Newcastle, he prefaced 
the statement by sayiug that Lord Cardigan was 'as 
* brave as a lion.'t Indeed, it would seem that from 
the moment in which he learnt the nature of the 
task imposed upon him to the one when he bowed 
to authority and composedly accepted his martyrdom, 
Lord Cardigan's demeanour was faultless. 

* I have not ventured to put the statement in an absolutely positive 
form, because Lord Cardigan, I believe, has no recollection of having 
received this direction. 

t Letter dated the 28th of October 1854. See this letter in the 
Appendix. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



207 



CHAPTER X. 



L 



As altered by Lord Lucan at the moment of direct- CHAP. 

■xr 

ing the advance, the disposition of the Light Brigade , J. . 

was as follows : — The 13th Light Dragoons, com- ^S°for 
manded by Captain Oldham, and the 1 7th Lancers, the ad - 

J r vance 

commanded by Captain Morris, were to form the oftl l e 

^ . A cavalry 

first line: the 11th Hussars, commanded by Colonel down the 

' y North 

Douglas, was ordered to follow in support ;* and the VaUey. 
third line was composed of the 4 th Light Dragoons 
under Lord George Paget, and the 8 th Hussars, or 
rather, one may say, the main portion of it, under 
Colonel Shewellt Lord Cardigan, as commander of 
the whole brigade, had to place himself at the head of 
the first line. The second line, consisting of only one 

* Before the change thus ordered by Lord Lncan the three first- 
named regiments had been all in first line. I speak of the change 
actually effected, and not of the one contemplated by Lord Lncan. He 
meant to have placed the 4th Light Dragoons in the same alignment as 
the 11th Hussars ; but his orders to that last purpose were never com- 
municated to the 4th Light Dragoons. The order for the 11th Hussar 
to drox> back and act in support was given by Lord Lucan in person to 
Colonel Douglas. 

t A troop of the 8th Hussars, commanded by Captain Chetwynd, had 
been abstracted from the regiment to act as escort to the Commander of 
the Forces, and was at the Headquarters camp. 



208 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, regiment, was commanded by Douglas, its colonel ; 

, and the two regiments comprising the third line were 

in charge of Lord George Paget. Each of these regi- 
ments stood extended in line two deep. The Light 
Cavalry was to be supported by Scarlett's victorious 
brigade ; and with two of Scarlett's regiments — that 
is, the Greys and the Eoyals brought forward in 
advance of the other regiments of Heavy Dragoons — 
Lord Lucan determined to be present in person. We 
shall have to learn by-and-by that there occurred a 
conjuncture — and that too at a cardinal time — when 
the link which connected the two brigades was hap- 
lessly suffered to break ; but nevertheless it should 
be understood that the advance of not only our Light 
Cavalry but also our Heavy Dragoons was meant to 
form one operation. We shall find that both of the 
brigades (though not in anything like the same de- 
gree) were exposed to the trials and the losses which 
the nature of the onslaught involved* 
Lord Car- Lord Cardigan placed himself quite alone at a 
his staff, distance of about two horses' lengths in advance of 
his Staff, and some five horses' lengths in advance of 
the centre of his first line. 

When once a body of cavalry has been launched 
upon a course which is to end in attack, it has to dis- 
pense for awhile with reliance upon full, explicit orders 

* The above observation seems to be rendered necessary by the not 
unnatural tendency to concentrate attention upon that part of the 
operation which was performed by the Light Brigade. Besides the 
casualties in the Divisional Staff which accompanied the Greys and the 
Eoyals, these regiments, as we shall see, sustained no inconsiderable 
losses whilst engaged in the duty of supporting the Light Brigade. 



BATTLE 

The Lig 

E 

Site from which a Field 

Upon the advance 
Battalions and Boyanot 
the neighbourhood of 
squares in expectation 
Battery took up fresh p< 

In passing down the 
both flanks the Light 
losses, but its remains 
into the front of the tw 
end of the Valley. T) 
outflanks the Battery 
Captain Morris. 

The Heavy Dragoons 

Lord Lucan in persoi 
his two Brigades. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



209 



conveyed by word of mouth ; and although there may CHAP, 
come the time when the trumpet shall be sounding » — J- — • 
' the gallop/ and when afterwards it shall be sounding 
6 the charge/ yet, upon the whole, the troops of the 
first line obtain guidance mainly by carefully watch- 
ing the leader who rides at the head of the force ; and, 
the empire of words being thus superseded for the 
time by the signalling, if so one may call it, which is 
effected by the pace and the position of a single horse- 
man, it seems right, by a kind of analogy, that one 
who would listen to the story of a cavalry onslaught 
extending along a great distance should be able — as 
well as may be in the mind's eye — to see and distin- 
guish the leader. There is the more reason for this, 
since it happens that in the course of the controversies 
springing out of the Light Cavalry charge there arose 
a question of mistaken identity which has an import- 
ant bearing upon Lord Cardigan's military reputation. 

Lord Cardigan had so good a stature that, although 
somewhat long in the fork, he yet sat rather tall in 
the saddle, and notwithstanding his fifty-seven years, 
he had a figure which retained the slenderness of youth. 
His countenance, highly bred and of the aquiline cast, 
had not been without such humble share as a mere 
brother might be expected to have of that beauty 
which once made famous the ancient name of Bru- 
denell. Far from disclosing the real faults of his char- 
acter, the features of the man rather tended to con- 
firm the first popular impression that was created by 
the tidings of the Light Cavalry charge, and to indicate 
a nature which might have in it something of chival- 

VOL. iv. o 



210 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, rous, nay even Quixotic exaltation. His blue, frank - 



of disposition which I have thought myself obliged to 
ascribe to him. As might be supposed, he had an 



in the saddle. He wore the uniform of his old regi- 
ment, the 11th Hussars ; but instead of dangling loose 
from the shoulders, his pelisse — richly burthened in 
front with gold lace — was worn closely put on like a 
coat, and did not at all break or mitigate the rigid 
outline of his figure. * The charger he rode was a 
thorough-bred chestnut, with marks of a kind visible 
from afar, which in controversy it may be well to 
remember. On the near side before, as well as on 
the near side behind, the horse had one white leg.t 
In the small group which represented the Brigade- 
Staff, Lieutenant Maxse, assistant aide-de-camp, and 
Sir George Wombwell, extra aide-de-camp to Lord 
Cardigan, were, it seems, the only officers present.^ 

* In the Crimea at this time the Hussar regiments wore the pelisse 
in the same way as Lord Cardigan. 

f Under the off hind fetlock, also, the horse — he still survives, or did 
a few months ago (1868) — has a stain of white, but so small as not to be 
visible from a distance. As far as could be seen by any one on the 
field of battle not coming close to the horse, he had no white stains on 
his legs, except one high 'white stocking' before and another high 
'white stocking' behind, both the 'white stockings' being on the 
near side. General Liprandi, when questioning English prisoners 
with a view to identify the English officer whom he had seen galloping 
back, seems to have spoken of the horse as a chestnut with white heels, 
only one of the witnesses saying that the Russian General asked as to 
the rider of a chestnut with white legs. 

X The death of Captain Lockwood (an excellent officer, who was aide- 
de-camp to Lord Cardigan) has thrown difficulty in the way of knowing 
where he was during a considerable period of the combat, except its very 




revealed none of the narrowness 




erect — but also stiff — ■ 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



211 



Although the part of the enemy's line which Lord C H A P. 
Cardigan meant to attack lay as yet very distant - — J- — » 
before him, it was evident, from the position of the |° g r a d n >g ar " 
flanking batteries betwixt which he must pass, that ^ e the° n 
his brigade would not long be in motion without in- ^Ya^if 
curring a heavy fire ; and, upon the whole, he seems ™P° s ^f m 
to have considered that almost from the first his 
advance was in the nature of a charge. 

Followed immediately by his first line, and, at a Advance 
greater distance, by the other regiments of his brigade, Cardigan 
Lord Cardigan moved forward at a trot, taking strictly Light 
the direction in which his troops before moving had Brlgade - 
fronted, and making straight down the valley towards 
the battery which crossed it at the distance of about 
a mile and a quarter. 

Before Lord Cardigan had ridden a hundred paces The ap- 
in advance, he encountered a sight which filled him of Captain 
with anger. Eight before him he saw Captain Nolan fronTof n 
audaciously riding across his front from left to right ; 
but not content with a trespass which alone would 
have been shocking enough to Lord Cardigan's orderly 
mind, Captain Nolan, turning round in his saddle, 
was shouting, and waving his sword, as though he 

last phase ; and there is an idea (not confirmed by Lord Cardigan or by 
Maxse) that he was carrying a message from his chief at the time when 
the advance began. In a letter addressed to the ' Times ' newspaper, 
Maxse says that at the commencement of the advance, and again when 
the first line was * three parts of the way down,' he observed Lockwood 
in his place some five or six horses' lengths to the right rear of Lord 
Cardigan, and that that was the last time he saw him. Major Mayow, 
the brigade-major, had been on the sick-list, and although, as we shall 
learn, he found strength enough upon seeing the prospect of an engage- 
ment, to join the brigade and take a signal part in the combat, he was 
busied, in general, with the troops, and did not ride much with the Staff. 



the bri- 
gade. 



212 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, would address the brigade. We now know that 
* — ^ — ' when Nolan thus strangely deported himself, he was 
riding in a direction which might well give signifi- 
cance to his shouts and his gestures ; for, instead of 
choosing a line of advance like that pursued by Lord 
Cardigan, he rode crossing the front of the brigade, 
and bearing away to the right front of our advancing 
squadrons, as though he would go on to the spot on 
the Causeway Heights where the Odessa regiment 
His pro- stood posted."* Eegarded in connection with this sig- 
ject. nificant fact, the anxious entreaties which he sought to 
express by voice and by signs would apparently mean 
something like this — 'You are going quite wrong! 
' You are madly going down this North Valley between 
' flanking fires, where you won't have an enemy in 
' your front for the next mile. This — the way you 
' see me going — this is the direction to take for doing 
6 what Lord Eaglan has ordered. Bring up the left 
■ shoulder, and incline to your right as you see me 
6 doing. This, this is the way to get at the enemy! ? t 

* This diagram, by an officer who was one of the nearest of all the 
observers, points out the way in which Nolan's direction deviated from 
that of Lord Cardigan : — 

Lord Cardigan. 




f Lord Cardigan, however, in writing addressed to myself, has dis- 
tinctly confirmed the statements which show that Nolan was riding 
diagonally across the front of the brigade. Supposing my interpre- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



213 



Failing, however, to surmise that Nolan's object CHAP, 
might be that of averting mistake and supplying a - — ^ — ' 
much-needed guidance, Lord Cardigan, at the time, 
only saw in the appeal of the aide-de-camp a ridicu- 
lous and unseemly attempt to excite the brigade — nay, 
even to hurry it forward. Considering, however, that 
Nolan must have been acting with a full knowledge 
of the enemy's position, as well as of Lord Kaglan's 
true meaning, and that at the time of his appealing 
thus eagerly to our Light Cavalry by gesture and 
voice, he was not only on the right front of our line, 
but was actually bearing away diagonally in the very 
direction of the Causeway Heights, there is plainly 

tation to be right, the desire of an officer not only to have his chiefs 
order faithfully executed, out likewise to save our superb Light Bri- 
gade from self-destruction, might well excuse Nolan's interference ; but 
it may be also observed that there had obtained at our Headquarters 
a practice of sending an officer of the Quartermaster-General's Staff 
to guide Lord Lucan (topographically) in the execution of the orders 
entrusted to him ; and on that special ground, as well as for the more 
general reason, "Nolan might have imagined that he was warranted in 
trying to save the brigade from the error of taking a route which he 
knew to be the wrong one. His attempt no doubt was made at a very 
late moment ; but I have no reason for supposing that Nolan had the 
least idea of the mistake which was about to be perpetrated, until he saw 
the brigade begin to advance without having first changed front. After 
that (if my interpretation be right) he did not lose a moment in his efforts 
to rescue the brigade from the error into which he then saw it falling. He 
had just been speaking to Morris, announcing to him, in what I under- 
stand to have been a sufficiently cool and collected way, that he meant 
to accompany the brigade ; but the moment the brigade began to advance 
without having first inclined its front towards what Nolan knew to be 
the true point of attack he began to move diagonally across the front, and 
this so fast and with such appearance of excitement — excitement very 
natural to one who was then in the very act of discovering the fatal 
error, and eagerly trying to stop it whilst yet it was possible to do so — 
that Morris shouted out to him, ' That won't do, Nolan ! we've a long 
' way to go, and must be steady.' 



214 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



C H A P. more room for surmising that the aide-de-camp's 
' — ^ — ' anxiety had been roused by seeing our squadrons 
advance without having first changed their front, and 
that what he now sought was to undo the mistake of 
Lord Lucan, to bend our troops from the path which 
led down the fatal North Valley, and make them in- 
cline to their right— make them so incline to their 
right as to strike the true point of attack which Lord 
Eaglan had twice over assigned. 
Nolan's But a Eussian shell bursting on the right front of 

fate. . . 

Lord Cardigan now threw out a fragment which met 
Nolan full on the chest, and tore a way into his heart. 
The sword dropt from his hand ; but the arm with 
which he was waving it the moment before still re- 
mained high uplifted in the air, and the grip of the 
practised horseman remaining as yet unrelaxed still 
held him firm in his saddle. Missing the perfect hand 
of his master, and finding the accustomed governance 
now succeeded by dangling reins, the horse all at once 
wheeled about, and began to gallop back upon the 
front of the advancing brigade. Then from what had 
been Nolan — and his form was still erect in the saddle, 
his sword-arm still high in the air — there burst forth 
a cry so strange and appalling that the hearer who 
rode the nearest to him has always called it ' un- 
' earthly/ And in truth, I imagine, the sound resulted 
from no human will, but rather from those spasmodic 
forces which may act upon the bodily frame when 
life, as a power, has ceased. The firm-seated rider, 
with arm uplifted and stiff, could hardly be ranked 
with the living. The shriek men heard rending the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



215 



air was scarce other than the shriek of a corpse. This CHAP, 
dead horseman rode on till he had passed through the ; — ^ — > 
interval of the 13th Light Dragoons. Then at last he 
dropt out of the saddle. 

An officer of the Guards, who set down at the time Question 
in his journal what he had learnt of this part of the degree in 
battle, went on to say lightly in passing, that the £ 
blame of the error would be laid upon Captain Nolan, tacheVto 
because the Captain was dead. Whether based on Nolan " 
sound reason or not, the prophecy was amply fulfilled. 
None, so far as I know, have yet questioned that, when 
wrought into anger by the reception given to Lord 
Kaglan's order, the aide-de-camp was guilty of a high 
military offence — the offence of openly taunting a 
general officer in front of his troops ; and the limit 
of the evil thus done will never be measured, for no 
man can reckon and say how much an insulting apos- 
trophe may have tended to disturb the judgment of 
the Lieutenant-G-eneral upon whom at that moment 
the fate of our cavalry was depending ; but when this 
has been freely acknowledged, it is hard to see any 
other or heavier share of the blame that can justly be 
charged against Nolan's memory. The notion of his 
not understanding the order he brought, the notion 
of his mistaking a mile and a quarter of unoccupied 
valley for those occupied heights which our cavalry 
was to try to recover, the notion of his seeking to 
annul Lord Kaglan's order in regard to the captured 
guns, the notion of his intending (by a taunt and an 
outpointed hand) to send our troops down the North 
Valley — all these, it would seem, for reasons already 



216 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, disclosed, are too grossly improbable to be» worthy of 
« — ^ — ' acceptance ; and unless error lurks in fair inference, he 
was in the very act of striving to bend the advance of 
our squadrons, and bring them to the true point of 
attack, when death came and ended his yearnings for 
the glory of the cavalry arm. 



II. 

The shell which slew Nolan was the first, I believe, 
of the missiles which our squadrons, now advancing, 
encountered ; and the gunners on the Fedioukine Hills 
were still only awakening — awakening almost incredu- 
lously — to the singular occasion which their foe seemed 
coming to offer them, when — unknown at the time to 
Movement our people — a movement was made by the Eussians, 
o^theene- which shows with how sound a judgment Lord Eaglan 
Sows^ne acted when he ordered, and ordered twice over, 
apLtion'of tlie advance of our cavalry. 

Ws writ- ^ n k°^ n °f the two last orders, as we saw, the posi- 
ten orders ^ on f jfa e en emy on the Causeway Heights was 

to the exi- J Jo 

gency of assigned as the ground which our horsemen should 

the hour. o o 

endeavour to win ; and although our Light Cavalry, 
now advancing at a trot, had been launched from 
the first in a wrong direction, yet the ulterior pur- 
pose of pushing the attack down the valley had not 
yet so developed itself as to be discernible by the 
enemy. To him for the moment, and until our troops 
had moved down a distance of some hundreds of yards, 
this superb advance of our cavalry was so far similar 
to the advance which Lord Eaglan had directed, and 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



217 



which Liprandi was plainly expecting, that at the CHAP, 
mere sight of our squadrons there began to take place, . — ^ — ' 
on the part of the Eussians, that very surrender of 
ground — nay, that very surrender of captured guns — 
which Lord Eaglan had expected to obtain when he 
sent down his third and fourth orders. The weak and 
protruding column of infantry by which Liprandi had 
hitherto clung to the line of the Causeway Heights, 
and of the captured redoubts, began all at once to 
curl up. As already we know, the head of that column 
was formed by the Odessa Kegiment, a force numbering 
four battalions, which stood drawn up on the heights 
near the Arabtabia Redoubt.* Well, upon the approach 
of our Light Brigade those battalions at once fell 
back, abandoned the defence of the Arabtabia, retreated 
to such a distance as to be a good way in the rear of 
even the Redoubt ■ Number Two/ and threw them- 
selves at length into hollow squares, thereby ap- 
parently indicating that they expected the triumphant 
advance of our squadrons along the very route which 
Lord Raglan had assigned, and that, so far at least 
as concerned the westernmost portion of Liprandi s 
morning conquest, they had no mind to obstruct our 
cavalry in its task of effecting a recapture. t It would 

* Otherwise called the ' Number Three ' Redoubt. 

+ In General Todleben's plan — not in the text of his book — this re- 
treat of the Odessa Regiment upon the approach of our Light Brigade 
is faithfully recorded ; but the ' Legende ' of the official ' Atlas de la 
Guerre d'Orient,' which discloses a great amount of careful labour and 
inquiry on the part of the officers who undertook to record and illustrate 
the Russian movements at Balaclava, has put the same fact into words ; 
and as I consider that the retrograde movement of the Odessa Regiment 
is the most satisfactory proof that could well be furnished of the sound 



218 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, be hardly an overstrained use of language to say that 
* — ^ — ' without hearing Nolan, or seeing the paper he carried, 
the Eussians understood Lord Kaglans order, and 
(until they saw it annulled by the advance of our 
troops down the valley) were full ready to conform to 
its pressure. 

Even at this late moment, and after all the miscon- 
ception that had occurred, if Lord Lucan had turned 
at last in the direction assigned to him by his written 
orders, he would have found himself master at once of 
two out of the seven captured guns, with (apparently) 
a rich opportunity of not only securing the ulterior 
recovery of the two other lost redoubts and the five 
other English guns, but also inflicting upon Liprandi 
a calamitous defeat ; * for although the enemy's right 
wing was untouched, and although, towards his left, 
he still held his ground from Kamara to the second 
redoubt, yet the means on which he had relied for 
connecting the head of his column with the troops of 
General Jabrokritsky had been ruined by the defeat 
of his cavalry at the hands of Scarlett's dragoons. 
His grasp of the field was relaxing ; and indeed it 
could hardly be otherwise, for now that the Allies in 

judgment with which Lord Raglan acted when he, twice over, ordered 
his cavalry to advance to the line of the redoubts, I venture to give the 
passage : ' A l'approche de la cavalerie legere Anglaise, le regiment 
* d'Odessa a quitte sa position pres de la Redoute No. 4 [i.e., in front of 
' the Redoubt No. 3, see the plan]. Ses battaillons se sont formes en carre 
' plus en arriere.' See the plan. Of course I am not entitled to quote the 
French Atlas as an authoritative record of Russian movements, but, as I 
. have said, the statement is in strict accordance with Todleben's plan. 
** That men may judge how far such a surmise may be warranted, I 
invite an examination of the accompanying plan. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



219 



force were completing their descent into the plain of CHAP. 
Balaclava, Liprandi's continued obtrusion of troops in « — ^ — * 
the direction of the Causeway Heights was no longer 
warranted by his relative strength. 

* It is distressing to be forced to learn that at this critical 
moment, when Fortune proffered a victory, Sir George Cath- 
cart was still disobeying the order to ' advance immediately 
' and recapture the redoubts.' He was still halted by the 
"No. 4 Eedoubt with the main body of his infantry. The 
Eiflemen he had sent out skirmishing were, some of them, 
very near to the work when the fire which the enemy had 
thence been directing came all at once to an end. This 
change resulted, as we now know, from the retreat of the 
Odessa battalions ; but Cathcart still remained halted. In- 
deed, before long he drew in his Eiflemen, and informed the 
Staff Officer that he should advance no further.t Thus, from 
the enemy's temporary alarm on the one side, and on the 
other from the recusancy of Cathcart, it resulted that the 

* The footnote ante, p. 65, applies to this interpolation as well as to 
the one there occurring. 

t Having heard General Airey tell Cathcart that Lord Baglan wished 
him to recapture the redoubts, and being under orders to remain with 
Sir George, the Staff Officer, somewhat later, thought it right to ask 
Cathcart whether he would not proceed to the No. 3 Eedoubt (the 
Arabtabia), but Cathcart said ' No,' he would not advance further ; for, , 
though he felt sure he could recapture all the redoubts, including even 
the ' Number One/ no advantage would accrue, because the operation 
would cause him to lose some men, and the position being much too ex- 
tended, the works would have to be evacuated after dark. He said his 
mind was quite made up, and that he would write to Lord Eaglan. I 
do not find the note amongst Lord Eaglan's papers. Before men con- 
demn Lord Eaglan for not bringing Cathcart to an account for his con- 
duct on the day of Balaclava, it will be well for them to know that on 
the morrow — the very time when investigation on this subject might 
have been otherwise going on — there came a despatch from the Home 
Government which was calculated to make him stay his hand. See 
the chapter respecting Cathcart and the Dormant Commission contained 
in Vol. V. of the ' Invasion of the Crimea.' 



220 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Arabtabia and the next Eedoubt beyond— tbat is, the one 
X. called ' Number Two ' — remained for a while unoccupied by 
either Eussians or English. 



Gradual 
awaken- 
ing of the 
Russians 
to the op- 
portunity 
which 
our Light 
Brigade 
was offer- 
ing them. 



At first, as was natural, the enemy's gunners and 
riflemen were so far taken by surprise, as to be 
hardly in readiness to seize the opportunity which 
Lord Cardigan was presenting to them ; and indeed 
for some time, the very extravagance of the opera- 
tion masked its character from the intelligence of the 
enemy, preventing him from seeing at once that it 
must result from some stupendous mistake ; but the 
Eussians at length perceived that the distance between 
our Heavy Brigade and Lord Cardigan's squadrons was 
every moment increasing, and that, whatever might 
be the true meaning of the enterprise in which our 
Light Cavalry had engaged, the red squadrons were 
not under orders to give it that kind of support which 
the Englishman calls ' thoroughgoing/ This once 
understood, the enemy had fair means of inferring 
that the phenomenon of ten beautiful squadrons mov- 
ing down the North Valley in well-ordered lines, was 
not the commencement of anything like a general 
advance on the part of the Allies, and might prove, 
after all, to be hardly the result of design. Accord- 
ingly, with more or less readiness, the forces on the 
Causeway Heights, the forces on the Fedioukine Hills, 
and the twelve-gun battery which crossed the lower 
end of the valley, became all prepared to inflict upon 
our Light Cavalry the consequences of the fault which 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



221 



propelled it. It is true that the main body of the CHAP. 
Eussian cavalry, drawn up in rear of the confronting - — J- — ' 
battery, had been cowed by the result of its encounter 
with Scarlett's dragoons ; but, when that has been 
acknowledged as a qualification of what is coming, 
it may be said that the three sides of the quadrangle 
in which our cavalry moved, were not only lined with 
Kussians, but with Eussians standing firm to their 
duty. 

Soon the fated advance of the Light Brigade had 
proceeded so far as to begin to disclose its strange 
purpose — the purpose of making straight for the 
far distant battery which crossed the foot of the 
valley, by passing for a mile between two Eussian 
forces, and this at such ugly distance from each as 
to allow of our squadrons going down under a doubly 
flanking fire of round-shot, grape, and rifle-balls, with- 
out the opportunity of yet doing any manner of harm 
to their assailants. Then, from the slopes of the Powerful 
Causeway Heights on the one side, and the Fediou- upon P the d 
kine Hills on the other, the Eussian artillery brought br^ade" 8 
its power to bear right and left, with an efficiency fla^ s botl1 
every moment increasing ; and large numbers of rifle- 
men on the slopes of the Causeway Heights who had 
been placed where they were in order to cover the 
retreat of the Eussian battalions, found means to take 
their part in the work of destroying our horsemen. 
Whilst Lord Cardigan and his squadrons rode thus 
under heavy cross-fire, the visible object they had 
straight before them was the white bank of smoke, 
from time to time pierced by issues of flame, which 



222 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, marks the site of a battery in action; for in truth 
' — J- — ' the very goal that had been chosen for our devoted 
squadrons — a goal rarely before assigned to cavalry — 
was the front of a battery — the front of that twelve- 
gun battery, with the main body of the Eussian 
cavalry in rear of it, which crossed the lower end of 
the valley; and so faithful, so resolute, was Lord 
Cardigan in executing this part of what he under- 
stood to be his appointed task, that he chose out one 
of the guns which he, judged to be about the centre 
of the battery, rode straight at its fire, and made this, 
from first to last, his sole guiding star, 
officers With the two regiments constituting the first line, 

acting & & . 

with the there rode the following officers ; Besides Captain 

two regi- 

mentsof Oldham, the officer commanding the 13th Light 
line. Dragoons, the officers with the regiment were — 
Captain Goad, Captain Jenyns, Captain Tremayne, 
Lieutenant Percy Smith (acting Adjutant), Lieutenant 
Edward Lennox Jervis, Cornet Montgomery, and 
Cornet Chamberlayne ; * whilst with the 1 7th Lancers 
there were Captain Morris (in command of the 
regiment), Captain Robert White, Captain Winter, 
Captain Webb, Captain Godfrey Morgan, Lieutenant 
Thomson, Lieutenant Sir William Gordon, Lieutenant 
Hartopp, Lieutenant Chad wick (Adjutant), Cornet 
Wombwell,t and Cornet Cleveland. 

* Cornet G. M. Goad was present with this regiment in the earlier 
part of the battle, but at the time when our cavalry moved westward, 
after the loss of the Turkish redoubts he was disabled from the effect of 
a fragment of shell which struck his charger and caused the animal to 
fall over him. — Note to 2d Edition. 

t Wombwell, though near his own regiment — being on its right 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



223 



Pressing always deeper and deeper into this pen of CHAP, 
fire, the devoted brigade, with Lord Cardigan still at < — ^ — ' 
its head, continued to move down the valley. The StlSS?* 
fire the brigade was incurring had not yet come to be °*^ e brl " 
of that crushing sort which mows down half a troop 
in one instant, and for some time a steady pace was 
maintained. As often as a horse was killed or dis- 
abled, or deprived of the rider, his fall, or his plunge, 
or his ungovernecl pressure, had commonly the effect 
of enforcing upon the neighbouring chargers more or 
less of lateral movement, and in this way there was 
occasioned a slight distension of the rank in which 
the casualty had occurred ; but, in the next instant, 
when the troopers had ridden clear of the disturbing 
cause, they closed up, and rode on in a line as even 
as before, though reduced by the loss just sustained. 
The movement occasioned by each casualty was so 
constantly recurring, and so constantly followed by 
the same process, — the process of re-closing the ranks, 
that, to distant observers, the alternate distension and 
contraction of the line seemed to have the precision 
and sameness which belong to mechanic contrivance. 
Of these distant observers there was one — and that 
too a soldier — who so felt to the heart the true import 
of what he saw that, in a paroxysm of admiration 
and grief, he burst into tears. In well-maintained 
order, but growing less every instant, our squadrons 
still moved down the valley. 

Their pace for some time was firmly governed. The pace. 

flank — was not doing duty with it, because as we saw he was on 
Lord Cardigan's Staff. 



224 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. When horsemen, too valorous to be thinking of flight, 
« — ^ — * are brought into straits of this kind, their tendency 
is to be galloping swiftly forward, each man at the 
greatest pace he can exact from his own charger, thus 
destroying, of course, the formation of the line ; but 
Lord Cardigans love of strict, uniform order was a 
propensity having all the force of a passion ; and as 
long as it seemed possible to exert authority by voice 
or by gesture, the leader of this singular onset was 
firm in repressing the fault. 

Thus when Captain White, of the 17th Lancers 
(who commanded the squadron of direction), became 
6 anxious/ as he frankly expressed it, ' to get out of 
' such a murderous fire, and iuto the guns, as being 
' the best of the two evils/ and endeavouring, with 
that view, to ' force the pace/ pressed forward so 
much as to be almost alongside of the chief's bridle- 
Lord Car- arm, Lord Cardigan checked this impatience by laying 
rif xiway his sword across the Captain's breast, telling him at 
the bri- DS the same time not to try to force the pace, and not to 
gade ' be riding before the leader of the brigade. Otherwise 
than for this, Lord Cardigan, from the first to the last 
of the onset, did not speak nor make sign. Eiding 
straight and erect, he never once turned in his saddle 
with the object of getting a glance at the state of the 
squadrons which followed him ; and to this rigid 
abstinence — giving proof, as such abstinence did, of an 
unbending resolve — it was apparently owing that the 
brigade never fell into doubt concerning its true path 
of duty, never wavered (as the best squadrons will, if 
the leader, for even an instant, appears to be uncertain 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



225 



of purpose), and was guiltless of even inclining to any CHAP, 
default except that of failing to keep down the pace. - — J- — ' 
So far as concerned the first line, this task was increasing 
now becoming more and more difficult. When the of^e- 11117 
13th Light Dragoons and the 17th Lancers had the pace 
passed so far down the valley as to be under ef- i£ie hefirat 
fective fire from the guns in their front, as well as 
from the flanks right and left, their lines were so state of 

& the first 

torn, so cruelly reduced in numbers, as to be hardly line, 
any longer capable of retaining the corporate life or 
entity of the regiment, the squadron, the troop ; and 
these aggregates began to resolve themselves into their 
component elements — that is, into brave, eager horse- 
men, growing fiercely impatient of a trial which had 
thus long denied them their vengeance, and longing to 
close with all speed upon the guns which had shattered 
their ranks. The troopers here and there could no 
longer be restrained from darting forward in front of 
the officers ; and the moment this licence obtained, the 
ceremonious advance of the line was soon changed to an 
ungoverned onset. The racing spirit broke out, some 
striving to outride their comrades, some determining 
not to be passed. 

In the course of the advance, Lieutenant Maxse, Casualties 
Lord Cardigan's second aide-de-camp, was wounded ; Cardigan's 
and when the line had come down to within about a staf£ ual 
hundred yards of the guns, Sir George Wombwell, 
the extra aide-de-camp, had his horse killed under 
him. We shall afterwards see that this last casualty 
did not end the part which Wombwell was destined 
to take in the battle ; but for the moment, of course, 

VOL. IV. p 



226 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, it disabled him, and there was no longer any Staff- 
• — ^ — • officer in the immediate personal following of the 

General who led the brigade. 
Continued But although he rode singly, and although, as we 
Lord Car- have seen, he rigidly abstained from any retrograde 
his first glance, Lord Cardigan, of course, might infer from 
the tramp of the regiments close following, and 
from what (without turning in his saddle) he could 
easily see of their flanks, that the momentum now 
gathered and gathering was too strong to be mode- 
rated by a commander ; and, rightly perhaps avoid- 
ing the effort to govern it by voice or by gesture, 
he either became impatient himself, and drew the 
troops on more and more by first increasing his 
own speed, or else yielded (under necessity) to the 
impatience of the now shattered squadrons, and closely 
adjusted his pace to the flow of the torrent behind 
him. In one way or in the other, a right distance 
was always maintained between the leader and his 
first line. As before, when advancing at a trot, so 
now, whilst flinging themselves impetuously deep into 
the jaws of an army, these two regiments of the first 
line still had in their front the same rigid hussar 
for their guide, still kept their eyes fastened on the 
crimson-red overalls and the white near hind-leg of 
the chestnut which showed them the straight, honest 
way — the way down to the mouths of the guns."" 
Lord Cardigan insists that he was not the originator 

* The chestnut had two ' white stockings,' both rather high up the 
leg. Both these ' white stockings ' were on the near side, and to people 
following Lord Cardigan the white stocking behind was, of course, the 
one which most caught the eye. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



227 



of the high speed which they reached in this part of CHAP, 
their onset ; whilst some, on the other hand, say that « — ^ — > 
the squadrons never ceased from their duty of studi- 
ously watching the leader, and that the swiftness of 
Lord Cardigan was the cause which hurried forward 
the line. The truth, perhaps, is intermediate ; for it 
seems not unlikely that the rapid pace of the leader, 
and the eagerness of the squadrons behind him, were 
causes which acted and reacted alternately the one 
on the other ; but with whomsoever originating, and 
whether dictated by a sound warlike judgment, or by 
mere human instinct, the desire to move more and 
more swiftly was not unwarranted. Even at the cost 
of sacrificing military order, for the moment, it was 
seemingly wise, after all, in the straits to which our 
squadrons had been brought, to let every man close 
upon the battery with all the speed he could gather.* 
Alone, in a sense, though close followed, and with 
no regimental labour on his hands, Lord Cardigan 
had more leisure for thought than the chief part of 
those he was leading ; and for that reason simply, if 
not for any other, there is an interest in hearing 
him say how it fared with him mentally at the time 
of undergoing this trial. He has not been reluctant 
to disclose the tenor of the ideas which possessed 
themselves of his mind whilst he thus led his troops 
down the valley. From moment to moment he was 
an expectant of death ; and it seems that death by 
some cannon-ball dividing his body was the manner 

* This I understand to be an opinion now recognised as sound by- 
officers most competent to judge. 



228 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, of coming to an end which his fancy most constantly 
« — ^ — ' harboured ; but there is a waywardness in the human 
mind which often prevents it from laying a full 
stress on any one thought, however momentous ; and 
despite the black prospect of what the next moment 
might bring, Lord Cardigan — not knowing that his 
anger was with the dead — still dwelt, as he rode, on 
the incident which had marked the commencement of 
the advance — still raged, and raged against Nolan for 
having ridden in front of him, for having called out 
to his troops/"" By thus affording distraction to one 
who supposed himself doomed, hot anger for once, it 
would seem, did the work of faith and philosophy. 

Lord Cardigan and his first line had come down to 
within about eighty yards of the mouths of the guns, 
when the battery delivered a fire from so many of its 
pieces at once as to constitute almost a salvo. Numbers 
and numbers of saddles were emptied, and along its 
whole length the line of the 13th Light Dragoons and 
1 7th Lancers was subjected to the rending perturbance 
that must needs be created in a body of cavalry by 
every man who falls slain or wounded, by the sinking 
and the plunging of every horse that is killed or 
disabled, and again by the wild, piteous intrusion of 
the riderless charger appalled by his sudden freedom 

* The accuracy of Lord Cardigan's impression as to the thought 
chiefly occupying his mind at this time is confirmed by what we know 
from other sources of the first utterances to which he gave vent after 
coming out of the charge. No one was more struck than Lord Cardigan 
was by the strange and * unearthly ' shriek which Nolan had uttered ; 
but oddly enough, he failed to infer that the cry was one immediately 
preceding death. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



229 



coming thus in the midst of a battle, and knowing not CHAP, 
whither to rush, unless he can rejoin his old troop, - — „ — » 
and wedge himself into its ranks. It is believed by 
Lord Cardigan that this was the time when, in the 13th 
Light Dragoons, Captain Oldham, the commander of 
the regiment, and Captain Goad, and Cornet Mont- 
gomery, and, in the 17th Lancers, Captain Winter * 
and Lieutenant Thomson, were killed — when Captain 
Eobert White and Captain Webb and Lieutenant Sir 
William Gordon were struck down.t The survivors 
of the first line who remained undisabled were feeble 
by this time, in numbers scarce more than some 
fifty or sixty ;J and the object they rode at was a 
line of twelve guns close supported by the main body 
of the Eussian cavalry, whilst on their right flank as 
well as on their left, there stood a whole mile's length 
of hostile array, comprising horse, foot, and artillery. 
But by virtue of innate warlike passion — the gift, it 
would seem, of high Heaven to chosen races of men — 

* Captain Winter about this time was seen alive and in his saddle, 
but it seems probable that he had then already received his mortal 
wound. 

t Sir William Gordon survived and recovered, but afterwards re- 
tired from active service. I have heard that he was an officer of great 
ability, with an enthusiastic zeal for his profession ; and his retirement 
has been quoted to me by cavalry men as an instance of the way in 
which the perverse arrangements of our military system tend to drive 
able men from the service. It seems that (upon principles analogous 
to those adopted by the trades-unions) the sacred rights of mediocrity 
are maintained with a firmness which too often defeats the patient 
ambition of a highly gifted soldier. 

X The grounds of this necessarily rough computation are, 1st, the 
strength of the two regiments as ascertained at the muster after the 
battle ; and 2d, the absence of proofs showing that any numerous casu- 
alties occurred in these two regiments at a later moment. 



230 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, the mere half of a hundred, carried straight by a reso- 

. J — > lute leader, were borne on against the strength of the 

thousands. The few, in their pride, claimed dominion : 
Bushing clear of the havoc just wrought, and with 
Cardigan still untouched at their head, they drove 
thundering into the smoke which enfolded both the 
front of the battery and the masses of horsemen 
behind it. 

III. 

The ad- Whilst the first line thus moved in advance, it was 
the three followed, at a somewhat less pace, by the three regi- 
acting in S ments which were to act in support. The officers 
support. p resen t w ith these regiments — I take them from left 
officers to right — were as follows: With the 11th Hussars, 
with tL besides Colonel Douglas who commanded the regi- 
sar S hHus " ment, there rode Captain Edwin Cook, Lieutenant 
Trevelyan, Lieutenant Alexander Dunn, Lieutenant 
Boger Palmer, and George Powell Haughton. With 
with the the 4th Light Dragoons, besides Lord George Paget 
Dragoons, who commanded the regiment, there were present 
Major Halkett, Captain Alexander Low, Captain 
George John Brown, Captain Portal, Captain Hut- 
ton, Lieutenant Sparke, Lieutenant Hedworth Jolliffe, 
Cornet Wykeham Martin,*" Cornet William Affleck 
King, and Cornet Edward Warwick Hunt. With 



* Thackeray, who once chanced to meet this young officer in society, 
spoke of him as coming up to the very idea which he (Thackeray) had 
formed of a ( brave, modest soldier/ Cornet Wykeham Martin survived 
the Crimean War, but died young, and deeply loved. He was the son 
of the member for Newport, and the brother of the member for Ro- 
chester. — Note to Second Edition. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



231 



the 8th Hussars (which had only three of its troops CHAP, 
present), there rode, besides Colonel Shewell who < — J — < 
commanded the regiment, Major de Salis, Captain ^f^us? 
Tomkinson, Lieutenant Seager (the Adjutant), Lieu- sars - 
tenant Clutterbuck, Lieutenant Lord Yiscount Fitz- 
gibbon, Lieutenant Phillips, Cornet Heneage, Cornet 
Clowes, and Cornet William Mussenden. 

Of the regiments thus acting in support the fore- 
most was the 11th Hussars. In obedience to the The order 
order personally delivered to Colonel Douglas by Lord the ' sup- 
Lucan, the regiment had altered its relative position ; advanced, 
and, instead of forming the left of the first line, it 
now advanced in support of the 1 7th Lancers. Next 
came Lord George Paget's regiment, the 4th Light 
Dragoons. Whilst entrusting to Lord George Paget 
the charge of what he had intended to be his second 
line — that is, the 4th Light Dragoons and the 8 th Hus- 
sars — Lord Cardigan had said, with what was taken 
to be a somewhat marked emphasis, ' I expect your 
* best support; mind, Lord George, your best support ! ? 
Lord George said, e Of course, my lord, you shall have 
'my best support;' but the eager injunction he had 
received so continued to ring in his ears during the 
critical minutes which followed, that he was more 
careful to keep near the first line than to preserve 
his connection with the 8th Hussars. His order to 
the 8th Hussars had been, 6 4th Light Dragoons will 
■ direct ; ' and this order of course, if obeyed, would 
have sufficiently maintained the connection between 
the two regiments; but the instruction, it would 
seem, had not been effectually heard, or, at all events, 



232 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, was not kept in mind ; for the officers of the 8th 
* — ^ — ' Hussars apparently entertained a belief that theirs 
was the directing regiment of the line in which it 
had to act. Whatever the cause, it is certain that 
Colonel Shewell was most resolute in keeping down 
the pace of the regiment, and would not allow it to 
assume the same speed as the 4th Light Dragoons. 
Also, it happened, from some unknown cause, that the 
regiment bore more towards its right than did the 
4th Light Dragoons ; and from the difference of pace 
thus combined with the difference of direction, it re- 
sulted that both the interval and the distance which 
separated the two regiments were suffered to be con- 
tinually increasing. For some time Lord George 
Paget laboured with voice and gesture to call on, 
and call in to his side the diverging regiment ; and 
it seems that he despatched a message to Colonel 
Shewell with the same object ; but his efforts were 
vain ; and presently the increasing pace of the first 
line made him give his whole care to the duty of 
following it with a sufficient closeness ; for the sound 
of that ' Mind, Lord George, your best support ! ' still 
haunted his memory, and it seemed to him that 'there 
was no evil so great as the evil of lagging behind. 

Nor was the task of bringing and keeping the regi- 
ment to the pace of the first line so easy as it might 
seem at first sight ; for the squadron-leaders, being 
both of them men of singular firmness, would not suf- 
fer themselves nor their troops to be hurried by stress 
of fire, nor even by the impatience of their chief ; and 
therefore, whilst Lord George was labouring to force 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



233 



the pace, and from time to time crying 6 Keep up ! ' c H A P. 
the two imperturbable squadron-leaders so ignored , ^ , 
any difference there might be for such purpose be- 
tween wearisome practice at home and desperate ser- 
vice in battle, that without remission or indulgence 
the teachings of Hounslow Heath and the Curragh 
were repeated in this fatal valley. The crash of 
dragoons overthrown by round-shot, by grape, and by 
rifle-ball, was alternate with dry technical precepts : 
* Back, right flank ! ' 6 Keep back, Private This ! 9 
' Keep back, Private That V ' Close in to your cen- 
c tre ! ' 'Do look to your dressing ! ' ' Eight squadron, 
' Eight squadron, keep back ! ' 

The increasing distance between the 4th Light 
Dragoons and the 8th Hussars soon became so great 
as to make Lord George Paget discard for the time 
all idea of reuniting them into one line ; and, accord- 
ingly, with his now isolated regiment, he continued to 
press forward at a rate which was in great measure 
dictated to him by the speed of the first line. He 
observed, however, that in his front there was another 
regiment which had also become isolated ; for, in obe- 
dience to Lord Lucan's direction — a direction never 
communicated to Lord George Paget — the 11th Hus- 
sars had by this time dropped back, so as to be acting 
in support to the left of the first line. In these cir- 
cumstances, Lord George Paget determined that, by 
advancing in support to the 13th Light Dragoons, 
and by somewhat accelerating his pace, he would try 
to align himself with the 11th Hussars. In coming 
to this determination Lord George was governed only 



234 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, by the exigency of the occasion ; but it so happened 
« — J. — ' that, without knowing it, he was bringing the dis- 
position of the ' supports ? to that exact form which 
his Divisional General had intended to order ; for as 
soon as Lord George should succeed in overtaking the 
11th Hussars, the second line would be formed, as Lord 
Lucan had intended, by two regiments. Meantime, 
however, and up to the moment when Lord George's 
purpose attained to completion, the three regiments now 
following the first line were in echelon of regiments.* 
When the 8th Hussars began to encounter the rider- 
less horses dashing back from the first line, there was 
created some degree of unsteadiness, which showed 
itself in a spontaneous increase of speed ; but this 
tendency was rigorously checked by the officers, and 
they brought back the pace of the regiment to a good 
trot. Of the three officers commanding the three 
troops, one — namely, Captain Tomkinson — was at this 
time disabled. Another, Lord Fitzgibbon, was killed ; 
and several men and horses fell ; but Lieutenant 
Seager and Cornet Clowes took the vacant commands, 
and those of this small and now isolated regiment 
who had not been yet slain or disabled moved steadily 
down the valley. 

In some respects this advance was even more try- 

* Thus :— 
i 

11th Hussars. 

i 

4th Light Dragoons. 

8th Hussars 
(less one of its troops). 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



235 



ing to the supports than to the first line ; for al- C H A P. 
though the supports were destined to suffer much - — ^ — > 
less than our first line from the twelve Cossack guns 
in their front, yet, passing as they did between bat- 
teries and numbers of riflemen and musketeers, where 
the gunners and the marksmen were now fully on 
the alert, they incurred heavy loss all the time from 
the double flank fire through which they were mov- 
ing ; and yet did not (as did ultimately the first line) 
come under such stress of battle as to be warranted in 
cutting short their probation by a vehement and un- 
controlled rush. Throughout their whole course down 
the valley the officers and the men of the 1 1th Hussars, 
the 4th Light Dragoons, and the 8th Hussars never 
judged themselves to be absolved from the hard task 
of maintaining their formation, and patiently endur- 
ing to see their ranks torn, without having means for 
the time of even trying to harm their destroyers. 
These three regiments, moreover, were subjected to 
another kind of trial from which the first line was 
exempt ; for men not only had (as had had the first 
line) to see numbers torn out of their ranks, and 
then close up and pass on, but were also com- 
pelled to be witnesses of the havoc that battle had 
been making with their comrades in front. The 
ground they had to pass over was thickly strewn 
with men and horses lying prostrate in death, or from 
wounds altogether disabling; but these were less 
painful to see than "the maimed officers or soldiers, 
still able to walk or to crawl, and the charger moving 
horribly with three of his limbs, whilst dragging 



236 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, the wreck of the fourth, or convulsively labouring 
« — ^ . to rise from the ground by the power of the fore- 
legs when the quarters had been shattered by round- 
shot. 

And, although less distressing to see, the horses 
which had just lost their riders without being them- 
selves disabled, were formidable disturbers of any 
regiment which had to encounter them. The extent 
to which a charger can apprehend the perils of a 
battle-field may be easily underrated by one who 
confines his observation to horses still carrying their 
riders ; for, as long as a troop-horse in action feels 
the weight and the hand of a master, his deep trust 
in man keeps him seemingly free from great terror, 
and he goes through the fight, unless wounded, as 
though it were a field-day at home ; but the moment 
that death or a disabling wound deprives him of his 
rider, he seems all at once to learn what a battle is 
— to perceive its real dangers with the clearness of 
a human being, and to be agonised with horror of 
the fate he may incur for want of a hand to guide 
him. Careless of the mere thunders of guns, he 
shows plainly enough that he more or less knows the 
dread accent that is used by missiles of war whilst 
cutting their way through the air, for as often as 
these sounds disclose to him the near passage of 
bullet or round-shot, he shrinks and cringes. His 
eyeballs protrude. Wild with fright, he still does not 
most commonly gallop home into camp. His instinct 
seems rather to tell him that what safety, if any, there 
is for him must be found in the ranks ; and he rushes 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



237 



at the first squadron lie can find, urging piteously, CHAP, 
yet with violence, that he too by right is a troop- « — ^ — » 
horse — that he too is willing to charge, but not to be 
left behind — that he must and he will ' fall in.' Some- 
times a riderless charger thus bent on aligning with 
his fellows, will not be content to range himself on 
the flank of the line, but dart at some point in the 
squadron which he seemingly judges to be his own 
rightful place, and strive to force himself in. Eiding, 
as it is usual for the commander of a regiment to do, 
some way in advance of his regiment, Lord George 
Paget was especially tormented and pressed by the 
riderless horses which chose to turn tound and align 
with him. At one time there were three or four of 
these horses advancing close abreast of him on one 
side, and as many as five on the other. Impelled 
by terror, by gregarious instinct, and by their habit 
of ranging in line, they so ' closed ' j in upon Lord 
George as to besmear his overalls with blood from 
the gory flanks of the nearest intruders, and oblige 
him to use his sword. 

Familiar pulpit reflections concerning man's frail 
tenure of life come to have all the air of fresh truths 
when they are pressed upon the attention of mortals 
by the ' ping ' of the bullet, by the sighing, the hum- 
ming, and at last the 6 whang ' of the round-shot, 
by the harsh e whirr' of the jagged iron fragments 
thrown abroad from a bursting shell, by the sound — 
most abhorred of all those heard in battle — the sound 
that issues from the moist plunge of the round-shot 
when it buries itself with a ' slosh' in the trunk of a 



238 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, man or a horse. Under tension of this kind pro- 

- ^ , longed for some minutes, the human mind, without 

being flurried, may be wrought into so high a state of 
activity as to be capable of well-sustained thought ; 
and a man, if he chose, whilst he rode down the 
length of this fatal North Valley, could examine and 
test and criticise — nay, even could change or restore 
that armour of the soul, by which he had been accus- 
tomed to guard his serenity in the trials and dangers 
of life. 

One of the most gifted of the officers now acting 
with the supports was able, whilst descending the 
valley, to construct and adopt such a theory of the 
divine governance as he judged to be the best-fitted 
for the battle-field. Without having been hitherto 
accustomed to let his thoughts dwell very gravely 
on any such subjects of speculation — he now all 
at once, whilst he rode, encased himself body and 
soul in the iron creed of the fatalist; and, connect- 
ing destiny in his mind with the inferred will of God, 
defied any missile to touch him, unless it should come 
with the warrant of a providential and foregone 
decree. As soon as he had put on this armour of 
faith, a shot struck one of his holsters without harm- 
ing him or his horse ; and he was so constituted as to 
be able to see in this incident a confirmation of his 
new fatalist doctrine. Then, with something of the 
confidence often shown by other sectarians not en- 
gaged in a cavalry onset, he went on to determine 
that his, and his only, was the creed which could 
keep a man firm in battle. There, plainly, he erred ; 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



239 



and, indeed, there is reason for saying that it would CHAP, 
be ill for our cavalry regiments, if their prowess were - — ^ — ' 
really dependent upon the adoption of any highly spir- 
itual or philosophic theory. I imagine that the great 
body of our cavalry people, whether officers or men, 
were borne forward and sustained in their path of 
duty by moral forces of another kind — by sense of 
military obligation, by innate love of fighting and of 
danger — by the shame of disclosing weakness — by 
pride of nation and of race — by pride of regiment, 
of squadron, of troop — by personal pride ; not least, 
by the power of that wheel-going mechanism which 
assigns to each man his task, and inclines him to give 
but short audience to distracting, irrelevant thoughts. 

But, whatever might be the variety of the gov- 
erning motives which kept every man to his duty 
through all the long minutes of this trying advance, 
there was no variety in the results ; for what it was 
his duty to do, that every man did ; and as often as a 
squadron was torn, so often the undisabled survivors 
made haste to repair it. The same words were ever 
recurring — ' Close in ! Close in ! ' 6 Close in to the 
' centre ! ' e Close in ! ' 

It was under this kind of stress — stress of powerful 
fire on each flank, and signs of dire havoc in front — 
that the three regiments (in echelon order, but with 
an always diminishing distance between the 11th 
Hussars and the 4th Light Dragoons) moved down to 
support the first line. Except that the pace of the 
8th Hussars was more tightly restrained than that of 
the 11th Hussars or the 4th Light Dragoons, the con- 



240 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, ditions under which the three regiments respectively 
« — ^ — ' acted were, down to this time, much alike. Sustain- 
ing all the way cruel losses without means of reprisal, 
but always preserving due order, and faithfully run- 
ning the gauntlet between the fire from the Causeway 
Heights and the fire from the Fedioukine Hills, they 
successively descended the valley. 



IV. 

The near Lord Cardigan and his first line, still descending at 

approach . 

of our first speed on their goal, had rived their way dimly through 
battery, the outer folds of the cloud which lay piled up in 
front of the battery ; but then there came the swift 
moment when, through what remained of the dim- 
ness, men at last saw the brass cannons gleaming 
with their muzzles towards the chests of our horses ; 
and visibly the Eussian artillerymen — unappalled by 
the tramp and the aspect of squadrons driving down 
through the smoke — were as yet standing fast to 
their guns. 

By the material obstacle which they offer to the 
onset of horsemen, field-pieces in action, with their 
attendant limber-carriages and tumbrils behind them, 
add so sure a cause of frustration to the peril that 
there is in riding at the mouths of the guns, that, 
upon the whole, the expedient of attacking a battery 
in front has been forbidden to cavalry leaders by a 
recognised maxim of war. But the huge misconcep- 
tion of orders which had sent the brigade down this 
valley was yet to be fulfilled to its utmost conclusion ; 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



241 



and the condition of things had now come to be such CHAP. 

X. 

that, whatever might be the madness (in general) of « — ^ — » 
charging a battery in front, there, by this time, was 
no choice of measures. By far the greater part of the 
harm which the guns could inflict had already been 
suffered; and I believe that the idea of stopping 
short on the verge of the battery did not even present 
itself for a moment to the mind of the leader. 

Lord Cardigan moved down at a pace which he LordCar- 
has estimated at seventeen miles an hour, and already charge 
he had come to within some two or three horses' battery at 
lengths of the mouth of one of the guns — a gun be- f his first 
lieved to have been a twelve-pounder ; but then the lme ' 
piece was discharged ; and its torrent of flame seemed 
to gush in the direction of his chestnut's off fore-arm. 
The horse was so governed by the impetus he had 
gathered, and by the hand and the heel of his rider, 
as to be able to shy only a little at the blaze and the 
roar of the gun ; but Lord Cardigan being presently 
enwrapped in the new column of smoke now all at 
once piled up around him, some imagined him slain. 
He had not been struck. In the next moment, and 
being still some two horses' lengths in advance of his 
squadrons, he attained to the long-sought battery, and 
shot in between two of its guns. 

There was a portion of the 17th Lancers on our 
extreme left which outflanked the line of the guns, 
but with this exception the whole of Lord Cardigan's 
first line descended on the front of the battery; and 
as their leader had just done before them, so now our 
horsemen drove in between the guns ; and some then 

VOL. IV. Q 



242 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, at the instant tore on to assail the grey squadrons 
' — ^ — ' drawn up in rear of the tumbrils. Others stopped to 
fight in the battery, and sought to make prize of the 
guns. After a long and disastrous advance against 
clouds and invisible foes, they grasped, as it were, at 
reality. What before had been engines of havoc 
dimly seen or only inferred from the jets of their fire 
and their smoke, were now burnished pieces of cannon 
with the brightness and the hue of red gold — cannon 
still in battery, still hot with the slaughter of their 
comrades. "* In defiance of our cavalry raging fiercely 
amongst them, the Eussian artillerymen with exceed- 
ing tenacity still clung to their guns. Here and there 
indeed gunners were seen creeping under the wheels 
for safety, but in general they fought with rare devo- 
tion, striving all that men could, in such conditions of 
fight, against the sabres and lances of horsemen. They 
desired at all hazards to save their Czars cannon from 
capture by removing them in haste from the front ; 
and apparently it was to cover this operation— an 
operation they had already begun to attempt — that 
the gunners, with small means of resistance, stood 
braving the assaults of dragoons. 



V. 

It so happened that Captain Morris, the officer in 
command of the 1 7th Lancers, was advancing in front 

* There is reason for believing that the pieces were twelve-pounders. 
Their metal had that reddish tinge which is observable in the sovereigns 
coined of late years by the English Mint. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



243 



of his left squadron, and thence it resulted that the CHAP, 
portion of the regiment which outflanked the battery « — ^ — - 
fell specially under his personal leadership/* Small por- 

1 J x r tion of the 

As soon as Morris had ridden so far through the first line 
smoke as to be able to see beyond it, he found that Captain 
he had before him — with no line of guns interven- which out- 
ing — a body of regular cavalry, and he seems to the bat- 
have understood that the force thus immediately S im nd 
opposed to him consisted of not less than two confronted 
squadrons;! though he could not apparently see sian^cav- 
whether these two squadrons stood isolated or were alry ' 
acting in conjunction with other bodies of horse. We 
now know, however, that the body of horse Morris 
had on his front was one overlapping the battery, and 
connected with the right wing of that great body of 
Eussian cavalry which stood posted across the valley 
in rear of the guns. On the other hand, the portion 
of the 1 7th Lancers which was thus confronted by the 
right wing of the Russian cavalry could hardly have 
numbered more than some twenty horsemen ; J and 

* Before the change by which Lord Lucan reduced the three regiments 
of the first line to two, the centre of the 17th Lancers was the centre of 
the line ; and, Lord Cardigan's proper position being then in front of 
that centre, Captain Morris thought it right to avoid being unduly near 
the general of the brigade by placing himself in front of his left squadron. 
Having once taken that place, he kept it, notwithstanding the change. 

+ In words, so far as I know, Morris spoke only in general terms of 
the force as a ' body of cavalry ; ' but whilst lying in bed ill from his 
many wounds he contrived (though his arm was fractured) to sketch a 
little plan of the combat ; and in this the Russian force immediately 
opposed to him is represented in a way which indicates the presence of 
not less than two squadrons. 

% It is known that, besides the whole of the right squadron of the 
17th Lancers, a large portion of the left squadron (probably not much ~ 
less than a troop) was confronted by the battery, and entered it ; and if 



> 

244 THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 

CHAP, this scanty force, being now at the close of a rapid ad- 
< — ^ — - vance carried on for more than a mile under destruc- 
tive fire, was not moving down with such weight and 
compactness — nor even, in truth, at such a high rate 
of speed — as to be able to deliver that shock which is 
the object of a cavalry charge. It was plain, however, 
that, with all such might as was now possible, the 
blow must be dealt ; for the Russian horsemen, by re- 
maining halted, were offering once more to the Eng- 
lish that priceless advantage which they had given to 
Scarlett in the earlier part of the day. The density 
of the smoke had prevented the commander of the 
17th Lancers from seeing that three-fourths of his 
horsemen were confronted by the battery ; * and he 
apparently believed that, in executing a charge against 
the enemy's cavalry, he would be carrying with him 
the whole remains of his regiment, t 
Morris's Be this as it may, Morris, turning half round in his 
saddle, called out to his people, and said, 'Nowre- 
' member what I have told you, men, and keep to- 
' gether.' Then he put his spurs into ' Old Treasurer/ 
and, followed by that fraction of the regiment which 
ranged clear of the battery, drove full at the squadron 
confronting him. 

also it be true, as I imagine it must be, that by far the greater part of 
the casualties which ultimately reduced the regiment to a strength of 
only 37 had already occurred, it would seem to follow that there can 
hardly be any wide error in the surmise which puts the force engaged 
in Morris's charge at a number not exceeding twenty. 

* This is proved, as I think, by a little sketch-map in which he con- 
veyed his impression as to the position of the guns. 

f This is inferred from the fact mentioned in the foregoing note and 
from the general tenor of Colonel Morris's narrative. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



245 



In resistance to the onset of a handful of Lancers CHAP. 

X. 

thus descending upon their close serried ranks, the - — ^ — * 
Russians still remained halted ; and in the moments 
which passed whilst galloping down to attack them, 
Morris used to the utmost his well-practised eyes 
without being able to discern any one sign of waver- 
ing. The only movement he could detect in the 
enemy's ranks was of a kind showing readiness to 
join in close combat. The Russian troopers in front 
of him were perceptibly drawing their horses' heads 
in the direction of the bridle-arm, as though seeking 
to gain larger space for the use and free play of 
their swords. 

In the direct front of the ranks thus awaiting the 
charge of our horsemen, there was sitting in his saddle 
a Russian who seemed to be the squadron-leader. 
Morris drove his horse full at this officer, and in the 
instant which followed the contact, the sword of the 
assailant had transfixed the trunk of the Russian, 
passing through with such force that its hilt pressed 
against the man's body. The handful of men whom 
Morris was thus leading against the Russian cavalry 
followed close on their chief, drove full down at the 
charge on the enemy's array of Hussars, and so broke 
their way into his strength as to be presently inter- 
mingled, the few with the many — the twenty gay, 
glittering Lancers, with the ranks of the dusky grey 
cavalry. 

Seeing perhaps, with more or less distinctness, that 
they were undergoing an attack from only a handful 
of Lancers, some portions of the Russian Hussars whose 



246 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



G H A P. ranks had thus been invaded did not choose to con- 
k—J—s fess themselves vanquished, although their array had 
been broken, and these remained on the ground, but the 
rest galloped off; and their English assailants, or such 
of them as were yet undisabled, swept on in pursuit. 

Scarcely, however, had this happened, when those 
Eussian Hussars who had not given way were joined 
by numbers of Cossacks pouring in from the flank ; 
and they now once more had dominion of the very 
ground where their ranks, half a minute before, had 
been broken by Morris's charge. For the moment 
there was nothing to hinder the enemy from captur- 
ing any of the English who here remained wounded 
and disabled. 

Morris Of these Morris himself was one ; and his misfor- 
amd taken tune was a consequence of the determination which 
prisoner. j nc [ uce( } £ < g[ YQ point ' to his adversary. 6 1 

' don't know/ he would afterwards say — ' I don t 
' know how I came to use the point of my sword, but 
- it is the last time I ever do.' When his sword, 
driving home to the hilt, ran through the Eussian 
squadron-leader whom he had singled out for his 
first adversary, the Eussian tumbled over on the off 
side of his horse, drawing down with him in his fall 
the sword which had slain him ; and since Morris, 
with all his strength, was unable to withdraw the 
blade, and yet did not choose to let go his grasp of 
the handle, or to disengage himself from the wrist- 
knot, it resulted that, though still in his saddle, he 
was tethered to the ground by his own sword-arm. * 

* Thrust home with the momentum belonging to a horse charging 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



247 



Whilst thus disabled, Morris received a sabre-cut on C H A P. 

X 

the left side of the head which carried away a large * — ^ — ' 
piece of bone above the ear, and a deep, clean cut 
passing down through the acorn of his forage-cap, 
which penetrated both plates of the skull. By one or 
other of these blows he was felled to the ground, and 
for a time he lay without consciousness. As soon as he 
had regained his senses, he found himself lying on 
the ground; but his sword was once more in his 
power, for by some means (to him unknown) it had 
been withdrawn from the body which before held it 
fast, and being joined to him still by the wrist-knot, 
was now lying close to his hand, He had hardly 
recovered his senses and the grasp of his sword when 
he found himself surrounded by Cossacks thrusting 
at him with their lances. Against the numbers thus 
encompassing him Morris sought to defend himself by 
the almost ceaseless ' moulinet/ or circling whirl of 
his sword, and from time to time he found means to 
deliver some sabre-cuts upon the thighs of his Cossack 
assailants. Soon, however, he was pierced in the 
temple by a lance-point, which splintered up a piece 
of the bone, and forced it in under the scalp. This 
wound gave him great pain ; and, upon the whole, he 
believed that his life must be nearly at its end ; but 
presently there appeared a Eussian officer, who inter- 
posed with his sword, striking up two or three of Cos- 
sack lances, and calling out loudly to Morris, with 

down at high speed, the blade, it would seem, must have been forced 
through so much bone and muscle, as to be held fast against any mere 
pull which Morris could apply. , 



248 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, assurances that if he would surrender he should be 
X 

• — ^ — • saved. Accordingly Morris yielded up his sword, and 

became a prisoner of war. 
other in- At nearly the same time, and not far from the same 
this part n spot, another officer of the 1 7th Lancers fell alive into 
field! 6 the hands of the enemy. This was Lieutenant Chad- 
wick. Before he reached the line of the battery, his 
charger had received so many wounds, and lost so much 
blood, as to be all but incapable of stirring, though yet 
remaining on his legs. In spite of the singular and 
tormenting disadvantage of thus having under him an 
almost immovable horse, Chadwick found means to 
defend himself for some time against the stray Cos- 
sacks and other dragoons who, one after another, beset 
him ; but at length he was caught in the neck by a 
Cossack lance, which lifted him out of his saddle, and 
threw him to the ground with such force as to stun 
him. When his senses returned, and whilst he still 
lay on the ground, he succeeded in defending himself 
with his revolver against a Cossack who sought to 
despatch him; but presently, from the direction of 
our right rear, other Cossacks, to the number of eight 
or ten, rode down yelling, with lances poised, and to 
these (when they circled around him, and made signs 
that he might have quarter if he would throw down 
his pistol) Lieutenant Chadwick at length surren- 
dered. 

At this time, and in this part of the field, several of 
the wounded English who lay on the ground without 
means of defending themselves were despatched by 
the Cossacks ; but I have not been compelled to learn 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



249 



that men were guilty of acts such as these where any CHAP. 
Eussian officer was present. - — ^ — » 

It was before our supports had come down, and 
whilst the English were still combating in the battery 
or pushing their onset beyond it, that the enemy, for 
a moment, was thus able to exercise dominion in rear 
of Lord Cardigan's first line. 



VI. 

Of those who swept on at the instant without stay- Continued 
ing to subdue the resistance of the artillerymen, Lord by Lord 
Cardigan from the first had been one. After charging in person, 
into the battery, he continued his onset with but little 
remission of speed ; and although the smoke was so 
thick as to put him in danger of crushing his legs 
against wheels, he pierced his way through at a gallop 
between the limber-carriages and the tumbrils, by a 
gangway so narrow as hardly to allow a passage for 
two horsemen going abreast. Of necessity, therefore, His isola- 
his people who had hitherto followed him strictly now 
had to seek out other paths for their still continuing 
onslaught. Some, by bending a little, when neces- 
sary, to their right or to their left, found gangways 
more or less broad for their passage through the ranks 
of the artillery-carriages, and others made good their 
advance by sweeping round the flanks of the battery, 
but a few only were able to follow close on the track 
of their leader, and all these, sooner or later, were cut 
of! from him by the incidents of battle. 

In this way it happened that Lord Cardigan had 



250 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, already become almost entirely isolated, when, still pur- 
« — ^ — ' suing his onward course, he found himself riding down 
TOnceto- sm gty towards a large body of Eussian cavalry, then 
krgebody distant, as he has since reckoned, about eighty yards 
of Russian f rom the battery. This cavalry was retreating, but 

cavalry. » J ° 7 

presently it came to a halt, went about, and fronted. 
Lord Cardigan stopped, and at this time he was so near 
to the enemy's squadrons that he has reckoned the in- 
tervening distance at so little as twenty yards. The 
same phenomenon which had enforced the attention of 
some of Scarlett's dragoons in the morning now pre- 
sented itself under other conditions to Lord Cardigan. 
All along the confronting ranks of the grey-coated 
horsemen, he found himself hungrily eyed by a breed 
of the human race whose numberless cages of teeth 
stared out with a wonderful clearness from between 
the writhed lips, and seemed all to be gnashing or 
clenched. It is believed that this peculiar contortion 
of feature, so often observed in the Eussian soldiery, 
was not, in general, an expression of anything like 
brutal ferocity, but rather of vexation, 'and keen, 
eager care, with a sense of baffled energy. Lord 
Cardigan himself imagines that, with the feelings of 
the Eussian troopers whilst eyeing him, the thought 
of gain possibly mingled ; for his pelisse being rich, 
and worn close at the time like a coat, showed a 
blaze of gold lace to the enemy. 

It can rarely occur to any man to be able to recog- 
nise a friend or acquaintance across the dim barrier 
of distance or smoke which commonly divides hostile 
armies in a modern battle-field ; but in the part of the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



251 



valley to which Lord Cardigan's onset had brought CHAP, 
him the air was clear, and I am assured that an ^ — ^ — « 
officer of the house of Kadzivill, then serving with 
the Eussian cavalry, was able to recognise in the 
gorgeous hussar now before him, that same Earl of 
Cardigan whom he had formerly known or remarked 
during the period of a visit to England."" This offi- Endeav- 
cer savs that he ordered some Cossacks to endeavour take him 
to capture his London acquaintance, enjoining them pnsoner * 
specially to bring in their prisoner unhurt, and that, 
the better to whet their zeal, he promised them a 
tempting reward. 

Certainly, the bearing of the Cossacks who now 
came forward against Lord Cardigan was very much 
what might have been expected from men who had 
received such instructions as these. Two of them 
only, in the first instance, came up close to him, 
and these not, as I gather, in a truculent way, for 
they seemed as though they would have liked to make 
him prisoner. Lord Cardigan, however, showing no 
signs of an intention to surrender, they began to assail 
him with their lances, and for a moment his de- 
meanour was like that of a man who regarded the 
movements of the Cossacks as disorderly rather than 
hostile ; for — full of high scorn at the wretchedness 
of their nags — he sat up stiff in the saddle, and kept 
his sword at the slope. Presently, however, he found 
himself slightly wounded by a thrust received near the 
hip, and in peril of being unhorsed by a lance which 

* My informant assures me that he had this from Prince Eadzivill 
himself. 



252 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, caught hold of him by the pelisse, and nearly forced 
< — ^ — • him out of his saddle. Yet that last effort seems 
to have been made by a Cossack who was himself 
almost in retreat ; for the man at the time had his 
back half turned to Lord Cardigan, and the thrust he 
delivered was the one known to science by the name 
of the ' right rear point/ The assailant had possibly 
learnt by this time that his comrades a little way off 
were flying from the English cavalry, and that he 
must not be too slow in conforming. 
The move- It was right, of course, that instead of submitting 
retreatby to be taken prisoner, or to be butchered by over- 
disengag- whelming numbers, Lord Cardigan, being nearly alone, 
fromh? s elf an d altogether unaided, should disengage himself, if 
asslnants. ne could, from the reach of his assailants by a sufficing 
movement of retreat, and this he accordingly did ; but 
before he had galloped far back, and whilst still on 
the Eussian side of the battery, he found that he 
already had extricated himself from personal moles- 
tation, and had leisure to determine what next he 
would do. 

The devo- Being now on the verge of that period in the bat- 

tion with 

which, tie when Lord Cardigans course of action became 
this time, such as to leave room for question and controversy, if 
digau had not for unsparing blame, I would here interpose, and 
brigade, say that, home down to the moment when he found 
himself almost alone in the presence of the enemy's 
cavalry, he had pursued his desperate task with a rare, 
and most valorous persistency. And English officers, 
I know, will take pleasure in learning that, from the 
moment when he quietly said, ' The brigade will ad- 



THE EATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



253 



' vance/ to the one when, nearly alone in the presence CHAP, 
of the enemy's cavalry, he stiffly awaited his assailants 
with his sword at the slope, Lord Cardigan performed 
this historic act of devotion without word or gesture 
indicative of bravado or excitement, but rather with 
the air of a man who was performing an everyday 
duty with his everyday courage and firmness.* 

VII. 

When Lord Cardigan had withdrawn himself from 
the reach of his Cossack assailants, he still continued 
to retire, and passed once more through the battery 
into which he had led his brigade. He then saw men 
of the 13th Light Dragoons and the 17th Lancers re- 
treating in knots up the valley, and he apparently 
imagined that the horsemen whom he thus saw retir- 
ing constituted the entire remnants of his first line. 
There, however, he erred. So far as I have learnt, 
there was no group of English horsemen still remain- 
ing ' effective ' which, at this time, had moved to the 
rear ; and indeed I have never yet heard of any one 
ascertained exception of either officer or man which 

* During the advance down the valley, Captain Morris, who could 
not have been under a bias favourable to the commander of the brigade 
(see ante, p. 171), was on the left rear of Lord Cardigan, and at no 
great distance from bim. When asked as to the manner in which 
Lord Cardigan had led the brigade, Morris used to say, ' Nothing 
£ could be better. He (Lord Cardigan) put himself just where he 
' ought, about in front of my right squadron, and went down in capital 
¥ style.' When specially asked whether Lord Cardigan had led ' quietly,' 
Morris answered, 4 Quite so ; just as it ought to be — in short, like 
' a gentleman ' — ' an expression from his lips conveying much,' so says 
the narrator of the conversation, 4 to any one who knew him.' 



Lord Car- 
digan's re- 
turn 
through 
the bat- 
tery. 



His pre- 
dicament. 



254 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, ought to forbid me from saying in general terms that 
v_^l_^ the Light Dragoons and the Lancers whom Lord Car- 
digan saw retreating were, all of them, men disabled 
— men either disabled by their own wounds, or else 
by the wounds of their chargers. It must be remem- 
bered, however, that the number of men thus in one 
way or other disabled was so huge in proportion to 
the whole strength of the regiments, as to give a seem- 
ing, though fallacious ground for the wrong impres- 
sion which their appearance produced upon Lord Car- 
digan's mind. It is certain enough, as we shall after- 
wards learn more fully, that effective remnants of the 
1 3th Light Dragoons and of the 1 7th Lancers pushed 
on their attack down the valley in the direction of the 
aqueduct ; but Lord Cardigan solemnly declares — and 
declares, I believe, with truth — that, at the time, he 
could see none of his first line except those who, being 
most of them already some way towards the rear, were 
retreating up the slope of the valley. In these circum- 
stances, he satisfied himself that, so far as concerned the 
business of rallying or otherwise interfering with the 
shattered fragments of his first line, there was nothing he 
could usefully do, without first following their retreat. 

But then Lord Cardigan, though acting as the more 
immediate leader of the first line was also in command 
of the whole brigade, and had charge, amongst others, 
of the three regiments which formed his supports. 
Was he warranted in leaving those regiments to fight 
their way in, or to fight their way out without giving 
them the advantage, if any, which the presence of 
their Brigadier might confer ? 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



255 



Lord Cardigan answers this question by propound- CHAP, 
ing the theory that his primary duty was with the - — ^ — » 
first line, and by also asserting that he could nowhere 
see his supports. He determined to follow the horse- 
men whom he saw falling back. Without seeing 
occasion to deliver any order, or to hold up his sword 
for a rally, he continued the movement by which he 
had withdrawn himself from the Cossacks, and re- 
mounted the slope of the valley. 

It might be thought that, since he left a main part 
of his brigade in the fangs of the Russian army, Lord 
Cardigan, when resolved to fall back, would have 
sought to turn his retrograde journey to a saving 
purpose by flying to Lord Lucan or General Scarlett, 
and entreating that some squadrons might be pushed 
forward to extricate the remains of his brigade. 
Perhaps, though he has not so said, he exerted the 
utmost resources of his mind in the endeavour to 
see what, if anything, could be done for the salvation 
of his troops, then engulfed, as it were, in a hostile 
army, and was painfully driven to the conclusion that 
no reinforcements could help them ; but, so far as I 
know, he has not been accustomed to speak of any 
such mental efforts. Resolved as he was from a sense 
of personal honour to execute to the letter, and with- 
out stint of life whatever he might make out to be 
his clear duty, he yet never seemed to attain to such 
a height above the level of self as to feel what is 
called public care. And certainly his own account, 
if taken as being complete, would tend to make 
people think that, although, as might be expected, 



256 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, he was magnanimously regardless of his mere personal 
' — ^ — ' safety, yet in other respects, he much remembered 
himself, and all but forgot his brigade. It occurred 
to him, he says, at the time, that it was an anoma- 
lous thing for a General to be retreating in the 
isolated state to which he found himself reduced, 
and he therefore determined to move at a pace 
decorously slow. 
His Whatever were his governing motives, and what- 

retreat. a(?tua J p ace ^ ]±q rQ( J e ^ ac ]^ a l one towards 

the spot where Scarlett at this time was halted."" 
The first words he uttered were characteristic, and 
gave curious proof that the anger provoked by an 
apparent breach of military propriety had not been 
at all obliterated by even the ' Light Cavalry Charge/ 
He began to run out against the officer who had 
galloped across his front at the commencement of 
the onset, and was continuing his invective when 
Scarlett stopped him by saying that he had nearly 
ridden over Captain Nolan's dead bodyf. Lord 

* It is stated by General Scarlett that Lord Lucan was present at 
this time ; but Lord Lucan, on the other hand, has stated that Lord 
Cardigan did not ride up to or approach him until afterwards when all 
was over. Whoever is acquainted with the tenor of the affidavits filed 
in Cardigan v. Calthorpe will see, from my use of the word ' towards/ 
instead of 1 to,' that I avoid adopting, and also avoid contradicting, the 
passage of Lord Lucan's affidavit in which he says : he saw Lord 
Cardigan pass up the valley at a distance from him of about 200 yards. 
If Lord Lucan's impression in that respect be accurate, Lord Cardigan 
must have made a loop movement, passing first up the valley and then 
riding back to Scarlett. 

+ General Scarlett states that ' immediately previous ' to this conver- 
sation he had pointed out to Lord Lucan a body of troops (which he 
took to be the 4th Light Dragoons and the 11th Hussars) retreating 
under the Fedioukine Hills. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



257 



Cardigan afterwards resumed his westerly movement, CHAP, 
and rode back to the neighbourhood of the ground < — J. — - 
from which his brigade had advanced. 

Supposing Lord Cardigan to be accurate when he 
says that he could neither see any still-combating 
remnants of his first line, nor any portion of his sup- 
ports, there are two monosyllables — more apt than the 
language of scholars — by which hunting-men will be 
able to describe his predicament, and to sum up a 
good deal of truth in a spirit of fairness. For eight 
or ten minutes, Lord Cardigan had led the whole 
field, going always straight as an arrow : he then 
was 'thrown out/ Perhaps if he had followed the 
instincts of the sport from which the phrase has been 
taken, he would have been all eye, all ear, for a min- 
ute, and in the next would have found his brigade. 
But with him, the sounder lessons of Northampton- 
shire had been overlaid by a too lengthened experience 
of the soldiering that is practised in peace-time. In 
riding back after the troops which he saw in retreat 
up the valley, he did as he would have done at home 
after any mock charge in Hyde Park. 

It will always be remembered that he who retired 
from the now silenced battery was the man who, the 
foremost of all a few moments before, had charged 
in through its then blazing front, and that that very 
isolation which became the immediate cause of his 
misfortune, was the isolation, after all, of a leader who 
had first become parted from his troops by shooting 
on too far ahead of them. 

Lord Cardigan was not amongst the last of the 

VOL. IV. R 



258 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, horsemen who came out of the fight ; and his move- 
ment in retreat was so ordered as to prevent him from 
sharing with his people in the combats which will 
next be recorded. It must therefore be acknow- 
ledged that his exit from the scene in which he had 
been playing so great a part was at least infelicitous, 
and devoid of that warlike grace which would have 
belonged to it if he had come out of action only a 
little while later with the remnant of his shattered 
brigade ; but despite the mischance, or the want of 
swift competence in emergency, which marred his 
last act, he yet gave, on the whole, an example of 
that kind of devotion which is hardly less than abso- 
lute. He construed his orders so proudly, and obeyed 
them with a persistency at once so brave and so fatal, 
that — even under the light evolved from a keen, 
searching controversy — his leadership of this singular 
charge still keeps its heroic proportions. 

VIII. 

The handful of men which had charged under Morris 
pursued the defeated Hussars in the direction of our 
left front, and drove them in on their supports ; but 
when the Eussians found out that their heavy squad- 
rons were suffering pressure from what, after all, was 
no more than a small knot or group of horsemen, they 
turned upon their assailants ; and the little band of 
Lancers then beginning at last to retreat, came back 
intermixed more or less with the enemy's grey-coated 
horsemen. 



The • 

Lancers 

who had 

charged 

under 

Morris. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



259 



Presently they were met by some men of their own CHAP, 
regiment who turned with them, and joined their - — J- — ' 
retreating movement.* The united groups of these 
1 7th Lancer men were pursued by the Eussian cav- 
alry, and soon found also that they were threatened 
on their flank by a large number of Cossacks, t To 
avoid being cut off by those Cossacks, they inclined 
sharply towards their then left, but in vain, for the 
Cossacks closed upon them. They, however, fought 
their way through their assailants, and made good 
their retreat, passing up the valley obliquely towards 
the ground where Scarlett was posted. 

The rest of the first line, having broken straight into 
the battery, had either engaged themselves in the task 
of spearing and cutting down the obstinate artillery- 
men, or else had pushed forward betwixt the limbers 
and the tumbrils to assail the cavalry in rear of the 
guns. These men of the first line, however, were all The 
broken up into small groups and knots, or else acting, combat- 

, . , , . . , ants con- 

each singly, as skirmishers. stituting 

One of these groups had in it some of those very Remnants 

few men of the 13th Light Dragoons who yet remained ii^ e first 

undisabled, and Captain Jenyns, then in command of The 

J group 

the regiment, endeavoured to keep it together ; but under 

Captain 

the largest fraction of the first line consisted of that Jenyns. 
part of the 1 7th Lancers, which, not having been en- Group 
gaged in Morris's charge, and not having yet pressed men of the 

* The men they thus met were those who (as will be presently men- 
tioned) were acting under Sergeant O'Hara. 

f These apparently were the Cossacks who had poured in from the 
flank and were able to take prisoners as already described whilst the 
Lancers who charged under Morris were passing on in pursuit. 



260 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



on against the enemy's cavalry, was engaged with the 
Kussian artillerymen in the battery. Morris, himself, 
17th Lan- ag we gaw having first been cut down, had fallen into 

cers. 7 o 7 

the hands of the enemy; and, there being but few other 
officers at this time who remained alive and undisabled, 
the men knew of nothing better to do than to try to 
complete their capture of the battery. 

At the part of the battery which had been entered 
by these men of the 1 7th Lancers, the Eussian artil- 
lerymen were limbering up and making great exertions 
to carry off their guns, whilst our Lancers, seeing this, 
began to busy themselves with the task of hindering 
the withdrawal of the prey, and in particular the lefter- 
most portion of them, under the direction of Sergeant 
O'Hara, were stopping the withdrawal of one of the 
guns which already had been moved off some paces, 

Mayow's when a voice was heard calling, ' Seventeeth ! Seven- 
assump- 
tion of ' teenth ! this way ! this way ! 

over these. The voice came from Mayow, the officer who held 
the post of brigade-major ; but also it chanced that, 
with the first line, Mayow was the officer next in 
seniority to the commander of the brigade (whom he 
could not, he says, then see), and it was in that con- 
dition of things that he took upon himself to direct 
the operations of this still fighting remnant. 
Mayow's Mayow judged that if these men remained combat- 
themen. ing in the battery they would be presently over- 
whelmed by the cavalry which he saw in his front, and 
that, desperate as the expedient might seem, the course 
really safest and best was at once, with any force that 
could be gathered, to attack the Eussian horsemen 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



261 



whilst still they were only impending, and before they CHAP, 
became the assailants. Therefore warning the Lancers « — ^ — - 
that if they remained in the battery they would pre- 
sently be closed in upon and cut to pieces, he called 
upon them to push forward. He was obeyed ; but 
from the way in which, at the time, he chanced to be 
carrying the pistol then held in his hand, his order 
was in part mistaken ; for O'Hara supposed that the 
brigade-major, by pointing, as he seemed to be doing, 
towards his left front, must be intending to order an 
advance in that direction. Accordingly O'Hara, with Men under 
the Lancers acting under his immediate guidance, 
moved off towards his left front, and there then only 
remained about fifteen men who continued to act 
under Mayow. 

Putting himself at the head of these last, Mayow led Mayow's 
them against a body of Eussian cavalry which stood 
halted in rear of the guns* With his handful of 
Lancers he charged the Eussian horsemen and drove 
them in on their second reserve, pushing forward so His ad- 
far as to be at last some five hundred yards in the pursuit, 
rear (Russian rear) of the battery, and in sight of the 
bridge over the aqueduct on the main road which 
led to Tchorgoun. 

It may well be imagined that, intruding, as he was, 
with less than a score of horsemen, into the very 
rear of the Eussian position, and dealing with a 
hostile cavalry which numbered itself by thousands, 
Mayow was not so enticed by the yielding, nay, 

* This was probably the body which went about and fronted when 
Lord Cardigan in person approached it. 



262 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, fugitive, tendency of the squadrons retreating before 
> — ^ — - him, as to forget that the usefulness of the singular 
venture which had brought him thus far must depend, 
after all, upon the chance of its being supported. He 
His halt, halted his little band ; and whether he caught his 
earliest glimpse of the truth with his own eyes, or 
whether he gathered it from the mirthful voices of his 
Lancers saying something of 'the Busby -bags com- 
e ing/ or ' the Busby-bags taking it coolly/ he at all 
events learnt to his joy that exactly at the time when 
he best could welcome its aid, a fresh English force 
was at hand."" The force seen was only one squadron, 
but a squadron in beautiful order ; and, though halted 
when first discerned, it presently resumed its advance, 
and was seen to be now fast approaching. 
Opera- It will now be convenient to observe the operations 
thTforces of the troops which were actively supporting Lord 
supportmg Cardigan's first line, and to take them in the order of 

the first from left tQ right 



IX. 



The feel- 
ings with 
which the 
French 
saw our 
Light Cav- 
alry ad- 
vance 
down the 
North 
Valley. 



It was with a generous admiration, yet also with a 
thrilling anxiety, and with a sentiment scarce short 
of horror, that the French saw our squadrons advance 
down the valley, and glide on, as it were, to destruc- 
tion ; but especially was strong feeling aroused in 
that warlike body of horse which stood ranged, as 



* The ' Busby-bag ' is the familiar name for the head-gear of the 
English Hussar, and — upon the pars pro totd principle — for the Hussar 
himself. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



263 



we know, on the left rear of the ground whence our CHAP. 
Light Brigade had advanced. - — ^ — - 
Though originating in arrangements somewhat The Chas- 

8 6 & . & . seursd'Af- 

similar to those by which our Irregular Cavalry in rique. 
India is constructed, and though mounted on Algerine 
horses, the horsemen called 6 the Chasseurs d'Afrique ' 
were French at the time now spoken of, and they 
constituted an admirably efficient body of horse ; but The ceie- 
if all the four regiments which composed it were equal regiment 
the one to the other in intrinsic worth, the one which chasseurs 
had had the fortune to be in the greatest number dAfriqlle - 
of brilliant actions was the ' Fourth/ From the fre- 
quency with which the corps had chanced to be moved 
in Algeria, it went by the name of the e Traveller ' regi- 
ment. From the period of its merely rudimentary 
state in 1840, home down to this war against Eussia, 
the career of the regiment had been marked by bril- 
liant enterprises. When the Due d'Aumale performed 
that famous exploit of his at Taguin, overruling all 
the cautions addressed to him by general officers and 
resisting the entreaties of his Arab allies (who im- 
plored him to wait for his infantry), it was with this 
' Fourth ' regiment of the African Chasseurs, supported 
only by some Spahis or native horsemen, that the 
youthful Prince broke his way into the great esmala 
of Abdel Kader, swept through it like a hurricane, 
overtook and defeated the enemy's column, cut off its 
retreat, rode down the Emir's new battalions of regular 
infantry, and made himself master of all.* After the 
Due d'Auniale himself, no one perhaps knew better 

* In May 1843. 



264 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, what this famous regiment could do than that very 
- — ^ — ' General Morris, the officer commanding the whole of 
Morris. 1 tne French Cavalry Division, and now present in 
person with his first brigade ; for he it was who with 
this superb ' Fourth/ and one other of the regiments 
of the Chasseurs d'Afrique, had issued at the battle of 
Isly from that famous amassment of troops which 
Bugeaud used to call his ' boar's head/ and carried by 
his onslaught sheer ruin into the army of Morocco. 

This was the General who had ridden down to be 
present in person with the troops of his first brigade, 
and this 6 Fourth ' was one of the two regiments of the 
Chasseurs dAfrique of which the brigade consisted. 
General d'Allonville commanded the brigade. 

During the earlier moments of the fatal advance 
down the valley, it could not but be difficult to infer 
that the operation was to be one of an irrational kind, 
there being at first no clear reason for imagining that 
the Light Brigade would really descend betwixt the 
open jaws of the enemy, instead of proceeding, as Lord 
Eaglan had ordered, to recapture the lost Turkish 
His deter- heights;* but when, after some time, Morris saw 
mination. Light Brigade was still moving straight 

down the valley, and avoiding the heads of both the 
enemy's columns in order to run the gauntlet between 
them, he could not, of course, help perceiving that a 
terrible error was in course of perpetration. He was 

* I have already said that at the point whence our Light Brigade 
advanced, the angle of difference between the right road and the wrong 
one was only about twenty degrees ; and it well might be some time 
before a spectator could convince himself that the brigade was really 
going down the valley. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



265 



not, however, a man to see this and stand aghast, CHAP, 
doing nothing to succour the English. He resolved < — ^ — • 
to venture an enterprise in support of Lord Cardi- 
gan's attack, and on one side at least of the val- 
ley — Lord Lucan was on the other with his Heavy 
Dragoons — to endeavour to silence the enemy's fire. 
The force which he determined to assail was the one 
which lay the nearest to him — the one under General 
Jabrokritsky on the slopes of the Fedioukine Hills ; 
and the immediate object of his intended attack was 
a battery (divided into two half-batteries of four guns 
each) which was guarded on its right by two bat- 
talions of foot and on its left by two squadrons of 
Cossacks. -5 " 

General Morris chose for this service his famous 
( Fourth ' or ' Traveller ' regiment of the Chasseurs 
d'Afrique; and General d'Allonville, the officer in 
command of the brigade, was himself to conduct the 
attack. 

Accordingly, the chosen regiment moved forward D'Aiion- 
under D'Allonville. The front of the assailing force attack, 
was formed by two squadrons of the regiment under 
the immediate command of Major Abdelal, and these 
were supported by the two remaining squadrons of 
the regiment under Colonel Champeron. Champeron's 
two squadrons were in echelon ; and it seems that, 
though acting in support to the first line during the 
earlier part of the advance, these two squadrons, upon 
approaching more closely to the enemy, were to incline 
away to their left, and then, again bringing round the 

* The two battalions of foot were ' Black Sea Cossacks.' 



266 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, left shoulder, to fall upon the two battalions of foot 
< — ^ — - which constituted the infantry support to the guns. 

The ground about to be invaded was much broken 
and scrubby, being encumbered with a tall under- 
growth reaching up to the girths of the saddles ; but 
the want of smooth even turf was not likely to be 
discomposing to men who had learnt war in the ranges 
of the Atlas. Abdelal's two squadrons, advancing 
briskly in foraging order, and bringing round the left 
shoulder whilst moving, broke through the enemy's 
line of skirmishers, and having by this time a front 
which was nearly at right angles with the front of the 
Eussian guns, drove forward with excellent vigour 
upon the flank of the nearest half-battery, and already 
were near to their goal, when, with singular alacrity, 
the guns of the half-battery thus attacked, and those 
also of the other half-battery which had not been 
directly assailed, were limbered up by the Eussians 
and briskly moved off at a trot, whilst the two bat- 
talions of foot which constituted the infantry supports 
to the guns fell back all at once, without waiting for 
the impact of Champeron s two squadrons then rapidly 
advancing against them ; and, moreover, the Cossack 
squadrons on the left of the battery which consti- 
tuted its cavalry supports went about and began to 
retreat. 

Then, to arrest the overthrow with which he seemed 
menaced, or to cover the retreat of his guns, General 
Jabrokritsky in person put himself at the head of two 
battalions of that famous ' Vladimir ' regiment which 
had proved itself well just five weeks before in its 




A Ritchie ftSon-EdinT 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



267 



fight with our troops on the Alma, and proceeded to CHAP, 
hazard the somewhat rare enterprise of advancing « — ^ — » 
with foot-soldiers against cavalry ; but already the 
object of General Morris had been attained, and — 
exactly, as it would seem, at the right moment — 
he caused the ' recall ' to be sounded. In an instant 
the victorious squadrons glided back to their place 
in the brigade ; and it soon appeared that the Moderate 
losses, though involving certainly a considerable de- the losses 
duction of strength from a body of only a few byD'Ai- 
hundred horsemen, were small in proportion to the proportion 
brilliancy of the service these squadrons had ren- service 
dered. They had ten men killed (of whom two were rendered - 
officers) and twenty-eight wounded ; but in the course 
of the swift moments during which these losses befell 
them, they had neutralised (for the requisite time) the 
whole of the enemy's infantry on the Fedioukine Hills, 
had driven his artillery there posted into instant re- 
treat, and in this way had not only done much to- 
wards the attainment of a general victory, but, failing 
that result, had prepared for our Light Brigade, when- 
ever the moment for its retiring up the valley should 
come, a complete immunity from one at least of the 
two flanking fires under which it had been condemned 
to advance. 

Well imagined, well timed, undertaken with ex- Thebrii- 
actly apt means, performed with boldness as well aS this 
with skill, and then, suddenly, at the right moment, ment^f 
arrested and brought to a close, this achievement was seurs haS 
not only brilliant in itself, but had the merit of being d ' Afn( i ue - 
admirably relevant, if so one may speak, to the then 



268 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, passing phase of the battle, and became, upon the 
. — ^ — » whole, a teaching example (on a small scale) of the 
way in which a competent man strikes a blow with 
the cavalry arm. The troops engaged in this enter- 
prise were not the fellow-countrymen of those whose 
attack they undertook to support ; but that is a cir- 
cumstance which, far from diminishing the lustre of 
the exploit, gave it only a more chivalrous grace. 
The names of General Morris and General d'Allonville 
are remembered in the English army with admiration 
and gratitude. 

X. 

The nth When the 11th Hussars had so far descended the 
valley as to be close to the battery, it appeared that 
the right troop of their right squadron was confronted 
by some of the Eussian guns, whilst all the rest of 
the regiment outflanked the line of the battery, and 
had clear ground before it. Meeting little or no 
obstruction to their progress from the mounted and 
dismounted artillerymen who were busy with their 
teams in the hope of carrying off their Czar's precious 
ordnance, this right troop passed in through the 
battery, and pushed on beyond the limbers and 
tumbrils which were in rear of the guns. Then the 
regiment was halted. 

The Eussians who stood gathered in the most im- 
mediate proximity to the 11th Hussars were a con- 
fused number, including, it seems, artillerymen and 
cavalry. They were in a state of apparent helpless- 
ness ; and one of their officers, not disguised, as was 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



269 



usual, in the grey outer-coat of the soldiers, but CHAP, 
wearing the epaulettes of a full colonel, came up, < — ^ — » 
bare-headed, to the stirrup of Lieutenant Roger 
Palmer, and voluntarily delivered his sword to him. 
Palmer handed over the sword to a corporal or 
Serjeant at his side, and did not of course molest the 
disarmed officer, though the condition of things was 
not such as to allow of taking and securing prisoners. 

It soon appeared, however, that this tendency to 
utter surrender was not as yet general ; for when the 
crowd cleared and made off, it disclosed to the 11th 
Hussars some squadrons of Eussian Lancers formed 
up and in perfected order. * 

The 11th Hussars re-formed their ranks and made 
ready to charge ; whilst on their part the Eussian 
horsemen brought their lances smartly down as though 
for an immediate attack. They did not, however, 
advance. Eepeating the mistake already committed 
that day in the face of Scarlett's dragoons, and again 
under Morris's charge, and again under Shewell's, 
they remained at a halt, awaiting the attack of our 
horsemen. Douglas seized the occasion thus given 

* These were not Cossacks, but regular Lancers. A reader who might 
be comparing this narrative with the official accounts of the Russians, 
would have some right to ask what Lancers these could be, because 
Jeropkine's Lancers (called by the Russians the ' Combined Lancers ') 
were not in this part of the field, and the official accounts mention no 
other Lancers. It is, however, a fact proved decisively by the evidence 
of our officers, that both in the heavy cavalry charge and upon this 
occasion, squadrons of Lancers (not Cossacks) were present. Supposing 
that the Russian official accounts did not actually omit any forces really 
present, the solution, I believe, is this : portions of the Russian Hussars 
had been converted into Lancers, without undergoing a corresponding 
change in the official designation of the force. 



270 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, him, and led down his Hussars at the charging pace. 

> — ^ — - For a while, the Eussians awaited him with a great 
steadfastness, and it seemed that, in a few moments, 
there must needs be a clash of arms ; but when our 
Hussars had charged down to within a short distance 
of them, the Eussians, all at once, went about and re- 
treated. Far on, and into the opening of the gorge 
which divides the aqueduct from the eastern base 
of the Fedioukine Hills, the 11th moved down in 
pursuit. 

On the immediate right of the 1 1th Hussars, and so 
little in rear of them (by the time they had reached 
the battery) as to be separated by a distance of no 
more than some twenty or thirty yards, Lord George 

The 4th Paget was advancing with the 4th Light Dragoons. 

Dragoons. For some time this regiment had been driving- 
through a cloud of smoke and dust, which so dimmed 
the air as to hide from them all visible indications of 
the now silent battery ; but upon their nearer ap- 
proach, the Czar's burnished brass pieces of ordnance 
were almost suddenly disclosed to view ; and our Light 
Dragoons saw that, at the part of the battery they 
confronted, the mounted men there appearing were 

Their en- artillery drivers trying to carry off the guns. Then 

the bat- an officer of the regiment — and one, too, strange to 
say, who had hitherto been most inexorably rigid in 
enforcing exactness — brought his hand to the ear, 
and delivered a shrill ' Tallyho ! ' which hurled forward 
the hitherto well-ordered line, and broke it up into 
racing horsemen. In the next instant, with an ungov- 
erned rush, our dragoons broke into the battery. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



271 




There, with the artillery teams, brought up for the 
purpose, and by means of the lasso harness, the Rus- 
sians were making extreme exertions to carry off their ^whk* 
guns ; and, since these people were not only bold, {^ r e e d fo1 " 
strong, and resolute, but contending for an object very 
dear to them, a fierce struggle began. In their eager- 
ness to be putting forth their bodily strength by cut- 
ting and slashing, very many of our men neglected 
the use of the point ; and, for the most part, the edge 
of the sabre fell harmless upon the thick grey outer- 
coats of the Russians. In the midst of the strife, 
one young cornet — Cornet Edward Warwick Hunt 
— became so eager to prevent the enemy from hauling 
off one of the pieces that, after first 'returning' his 
sword, he coolly dismounted, and at a moment when 
the six wretched artillery horses and their drivers 
were the subject of a raging combat, applied his mind 
with persistency to the other end of the traces or 
e prolong/ and sought to disengage the gun from 
the harness ; a curious act of audacity in the thick 
of a fight, for which, unless I mistake, his colonel 
both damned and admired him. There were some 
amongst our men, and even amongst our officers, who 
performed hideous wonders in the way of slaughter ; 
for the Russians were under such cogent obligation to 
save their Czar's cherished ordnance from capture, 
and were, many of them, so brave and obstinate, that 
even the sense of being altogether unequal to strive 
against an onslaught of English cavalry did not suffice 
to make them yield. There was one of our officers 
who became afflicted, if so one may speak, with what 



272 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, has been called the blood-frenzy. Much gore be- 
< — 2^ — ' smeared him, and the result of the contest was such 
as might seem confirmatory of the vulgar belief as to 
the maddening power of human blood. This officer, 
whilst under the frenzy, raged wildly against human 
life, cutting down, it was said, very many of the ob- 
stinate Eussians with his own reeking hand."" Other 
officers of a different temperament made use of their 
revolvers with a terrible diligence. 

From his bearing at this time, it seemed that Lord 
George Paget scarce approved this kind of industry on 
the part of his officers. At all events, he so acted as 
to convey the impression that he reserved his energy 
and attention for the purposes of command, and did 
not conceive it his duty (except in actual self-defence) 
to become, with his own hand, a slayer of men. 

As might be expected, the obstinacy of the Eussians, 
interrupted in their task of carrying off the guns, was 
very unequal; and if some fought so hard as to involve 
our people in the combat we have just been speaking 
of, there were others who attempted no active resist- 
ance. Several drivers, for instance, threw themselves 
off their horses, and so crept under them, as in that 
way to seek and find shelter. In the end our Dragoons 
got the mastery, and not only succeeded in preventing 
the withdrawal of all the pieces of cannon which they 
had seen in the line of the battery at the time of their 
entering it, but also arrested and disabled some other 

* I have heard that, after the battle, when this officer had calmed 
down, there was so great a reaction in his nervous system, that he burst 
into tears, and cried like a little child. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



273 



guns — already a little way from the front — which the CHAP, 
enemy was in the act of removing. The business of > — ^ — > 
repressing the enemy's obstinate endeavours to carry 
oh his guns was of such duration that again there 
interposed a long distance between the 4th Light 
Dragoons and the regiment (the 11th Hussars) with 
which Lord George Paget had sought to align himself; 
for whilst the 4th Light Dragoons remained combating 
on the site of the battery, Colonel Douglas, as we know, 
was advancing; but his task in the battery being Farther 
almost complete, Lord George with a part if not with f Lord 
the whole of his troops, now pressed forward once more Pagetf 
in the hope of being able to combine the next opera- 
tions of his regiment with those of the 11th Hussars. 

The 8th Hussars, we remember, was on the extreme The 8th 
right of the forces advancing in support. Eeduced Hussar8, 
to one-half of its former strength by that triple fire 
through which it had been passing, but still in excel- 
lent order, and maintaining that well-steadied trot 
which Colonel Shewell had chosen as the pace best 
adapted for a lengthened advance of this kind, this 
regiment had continued its advance down the valley, 
had moved past the now silent battery at a distance 
of a few horses' lengths from its (proper) left flank, had 
pressed on beyond it some three or four hundred yards, 
and by that time had so passed through the jaws of 
the enemy's position, as to be actually for the moment 
in a region almost out of harm's way — in the region, 
if so one may speak, which lies behind the north 
wind.*'" Colonel Shewell then halted the regiment. 

* I need hardly say that the idea of referring to the ' country of the 
VOL. IV. S 



274 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Making only now one squadron — and that a very 
' — J- — ' weak one — its remains stood formed up to their 
front. 

Colonel Shewell, it seems, had the hope that an 
order of some kind would presently reach him ; and 
he well might desire to have guidance, for the position 
into which he had pushed forward his regiment was 
somewhat a strange one. On three sides — that is, on 
his front, and on the rising grounds which hemmed in 
the valley on either flank — Colonel Shewell saw bodies 
of the enemy's cavalry and infantry ; but the Eussian 
forces in front of him, both horse and foot, were in 
retreat, and numbers of them crowding over the bridges 
of the aqueduct. Yet nowhere, with the exception of 
his regiment, now reduced to a very small squadron, 
could he descry any body of our cavalry in a state of 
formation, though before him, in small knots or groups, 
or acting as single assailants, he saw a few English 
horsemen who were pressing the retreat of the enemy, 
by pursuing and cutting down stragglers. 

After continuing this halt during a period which 
has been reckoned at three, and also at five, minutes, 
Colonel Shewell resumed his advance. 

These remains of the 8th Hussars formed the small 
but still well-ordered squadron, which we saw coming 
down towards the spot where Mayow had checked 
the pursuit, and halted his small group of Lancers. 

' Hyperboreans ' as a modern illustration, belongs to Mr Lowe. See his 
celebrated speech in the House of Commons, 1866. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



275 




XL 

It seems right to survey the circumstances in which state of 

° ... . .the battle 

the Allied forces stood at this critical and interesting at this 

period. 

period of the combat. At the bare apprehension of 
the advance against the Causeway Heights which 
Lord Eagian had twice over ordered, Liprandi, as 
we saw, had retracted the head of the column there 
established in the morning, and had probably at this 
time no higher hope than that of being able to retreat 
without seeing his infantry and artillery involved in 
the overthrow which was sweeping his cavalry out 
of the field. On the Fedioukine Hills, the head of 
Jabrokr it sky's column was rolling up under D'Allon- 
ville's brilliant attack. In the low ground between 
the Causeway Heights and the Fedioukine Hills, the 
condition of things was this : Having intruded it- 
self, as we know, a mile deep into a narrow valley, 
hemmed in on three sides by Eussian forces of all 
arms, our Light Cavalry Brigade had overthrown all 
the forces which before confronted it, and was dis- 
posed for the moment as follows : The still combating 
remains of the first line were broken into groups and 
small knots, numbering perhaps, altogether, after the 
retreat of the men acting under O'Hara, as many as 
thirty. Of these, some were combating in a desultory 
way, with little other purpose than that of defending 
themselves, and endeavouring to make out what best 
they could do in the confusion ; but others, as we 
saw, were hanging upon the skirts of the Eussian 
squadrons, and, in effect, pressing on the retreat by 



276 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, assailing the people who lagged. The group of some 
< — ^ — ' fifteen men under Mayow had coherence enough, as 
we saw, to be able to put to flight the body of horse 
which encountered them. 

On our extreme left, Colonel Douglas, with his 11th 
Hussars, now counting a little more than 50 sabres, 
was pursuing the retreat of the Russian Lancers which 
had given way under his charge ; and on his right 
rear, Lord George Paget (having quelled the attempts 
of the Russians to carry off their guns) was advanc- 
ing with a part at least of the 4th Light Dragoons, 
a regiment now reckoning, perhaps, about the same 
numbers as the 11th Hussars. These two regiments 
formed our left ; and although at this moment they 
were not so placed as to be visible the one to the 
other, the direction of Douglas's advance was so far 
known to Lord George Paget as to make it likely 
that the two regiments might find means of acting 
together in concert, with a force, when united, of 
about 100 sabres. In the event of their doing so, 
Lord George Paget, as the senior officer, was the one 
who would be entitled to take the command. 

Towards our centre, we had no troops at all in a 
state of formation ; but on our extreme right, as we 
know, the 8th Hussars, now reduced to a strength 
of about 55, and commanded by Colonel Shewell, 
was advancing towards the group under Mayow. 
The event proved that this group of fifteen under 
Mayow was still in a state of coherence which ren- 
dered it capable of acting with military efficiency in 
concert with other troops, and it may therefore be 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



277 



said that Colonel Shewell (who was senior to Mayow) CHAP, 
had under his orders a force of about 70 sabres. « — ^ — • 

Altogether, these undisabled combatants numbered 
perhaps about 220 or 230, of which only about 170 
were in a state of formation. The two wings (if so 
we may call disconnected forces) were not visible the 
one to the other, and no communications passed be- 
tween them. 

In the absence of any general who might come to 
take in person the direction of these combatants, Lord 
George Paget, as we saw, was the senior officer on our 
left ; on our right, Colonel Shewell. 

From before the 230 English horsemen thus thrust There- 
into the very rear of the enemy's position, the bulk of the Rus- 
that powerful body of Eussian horse which numbered aiiy. cav " 
itself by thousands was strangely enough falling back. 
We now know that the retreat was much more 
general than our people at the time could perceive, 
and that, excepting Jeropkine's six squadrons of 
Lancers, almost the whole of the enemy's cavalry had 
been not merely beaten but routed. 4 '" Apparently 

* Liprandi, in his despatch, admits the retreat of his cavalry, but 
says that the movement was a ruse of General Byjoff's to draw the 
English on. 1 The English cavalry,' he says, 1 appeared more than 2000 
' strong. Its impetuous attack induced Lieutenant-General Ryjoff [the 
' commander of the Russian cavalry] to turn back upon the route to 
' Tchorgoun to draw the enemy.' General de Todleben, however, dis- 
cards that way of explaining the retreat, and says frankly that our Light 
Cavalry utterly overthrew the bulk of the Russian cavalry. Using the 
word 1 Cardigan,' in a sense importing the Light Brigade, he says : ' Car- 

* digan flung himself against the Don Cossack battery which was in 

* advance, sabred the gunners, then charged our cavalry, utterly over- 
' threw it [la culbutd], and advanced far beyond the line of the redoubts 
1 in pursuit of our cavalry, which retreated towards Tchorgoun.' 



278 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, also, as indeed might well be, these fugitive squad- 
' — J- — • rons carried panic along with them as they rode ; * for 
away, on the eastern slopes of Mount Hasfort, where 
no English could dream of pursuing, battalions of in- 
fantry were thrown into hollow squares, as though 
awaiting from moment to moment a charge of vic- 
torious cavalry. 

Thus much some brave men were able to do towards 
wringing an actual victory from even the wildest of 
blunders. 

The need Thus much ; but considering that this singular 

there was 1 „ . 

of fresh overthrow oi the many by the lew was occurring, 
orde^to 1 after all, a mile deep in the enemy's realms, and that, 
victory** 16 even although partly rolled up, the forces of Jabro- 
kritsky on the north, and of Liprandi on the south, 
yet lined on both sides, the lower slopes of the val- 
ley, it was evident, of course, that the ascendant of 
little more than two hundred horsemen now driv- 
ing whole thousands before them would only prove 
momentary and vain, unless it should be upheld by 
fresh troops coming down in support, or else by an 
attack on the Causeway Heights of the kind which 
Lord Eaglan had ordered. Were the red squadrons 
coming to clench the victory, and by victory to 
rescue their comrades ? 

We must turn to the commander of our cavalry, 
and to the regiments of the Heavy Brigade, with 
which he was present in person. 



* See the plan taken from General de Todleben. To eyes accustomed 
to such things, it expresses an almost headlong retreat more forcibly 
than words. 



VO L .IV 



Plate 7. 



NOTE 

The Insertion qfthzs^Plan must nottfe. 
taken as a representation Thai it-is, aceu^ 
-rate. thr cljeel is tc impart to others Thai gen- 
-eralsimpression in regard, to the nature of they 
Rinittvhieh- seems to hwc prevailed amongst 
Those- to whom Gem 1 Todleberv appealed for 
dn formation. 



THE PAST OF 
CENERALDETODLEBEN'S 

Which .shews the* slate cfBout into 
which the main body of the Russian 
Cavalry was thrown by the English light 
Caxahy Charge and die hollow squares 
formed in resistance lo our Horsemen, 
hy Two Battalions offfjzssiaMs Infantry 




THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



279 



XII. 

Amongst all those struggles between the judgment 
and the feelings by which man is liable to be tortured, 
hardly any can be more distressing than that which 
rends the heart of a chivalrously-minded commander 
who is bringing himself to determine that, in obe- 
dience to the hard mandates of Duty, and for the 
preservation of the troops which still remain in his 
hands, he will suffer an adventured portion of his 
force to go on to its fate unsupported ; and especially 
must he be troubled in spirit if the words which 
drove his people into a desperate path were words 
from his own lips. 

Wild as was the notion of sending a force to run Lord Lu- 
the gauntlet between the Fedioukine Hills and the can * 
Causeway Heights, yet, supposing the sacrifice to be 
irrevocably vowed, Lord Lucan seems to have formed 
a good conception of the way in which it could best 
be performed. He saw that in such an undertaking 
extension of front was an object of vastly less import- 
ance than the maintenance of an unfailing connection 
between the troops employed along the whole line of 
the advance. In short, he considered that the first 
line should be followed at intervals by successive lines 
of support, all forming the links of a chain so con- 
nected that, happen what might, the whole British 
cavalry would be a body of troops acting together 
under one commander, and constituting a powerful 
unit. It was in part execution of this plan that he 
had divided the Light Brigade into three lines ; and, 



280 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, intending to effect a corresponding disposition of Scar- 
« — J- — » letts Dragoons, he trusted that the several links thus 

provided would form an unbroken chain of sufficing 

length. 

The advance of our cavalry, however, had gone on 
but a short time when it became apparent that Lord 
Cardigan's severe and increasing pace was much 
greater than that which Lord Lucan had adopted for 
the Heavy Dragoons ; and the Eussians who lined 
the two ranges of heights were not only quick in 
their perception of this difference, but sagacious 
enough to infer from it a want of connecting purpose 
in the movements of the two brigades. The moment 
was approaching when it would be necessary for Lord 
Lucan to make a painful choice, and either to con- 
form with his Heavy Dragoons to Lord Cardigan's 
pace, or else — a cruel alternative — to let the chain 
break asunder. 

In his own person — and the keenness of his far- 
reaching sight made him apt for this service — Lord 
Lucan strove hard to prolong the connection between 
his two brigades by riding on in advance of his Heavy 
Dragoons, and following his Light Cavalry with 
straining eyes ; but he had not long passed the Num- 
ber Four Eedoubt when he was rudely compelled to 
perceive that he had entered on the path of destruc- 
tion already traversed by his light Cavalry, and was 
drawing forward his Heavy Dragoons to the verge of 
a like disaster. His aide-de-camp, Captain Charteris 
— fulfilling an incurable presentiment — fell dead at 
his side ; Lord William Paulet, his Assistant- Adjutant- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



281 



General, was struck, or unbonneted by a shot or a CHAP. 

X 

shell ; Major M'Mahon, his Assistant-Quartermaster- — » 
General (not, however, at quite the same time), had 
his horse struck by grape ; and Lord Lucan himself 
was wounded in the leg by a musket-ball, his horse 
being also struck by shot in two places/* 

Lord Lucan was not, however, disabled by the 
wound ; and, continuing his advance, he passed 
quickly so far down the valley as to be on ground 
nearly parallel with the Arabtabia Eedoubt :t but the 
distance between his two brigades, which he thus, as 
it were, sought to span or bridge over by his personal 
presence, was increasing with each stride of our Light 
Cavalry squadrons. Growing more and more faint 
to the sight, those splendid, doomed squadrons were 
sinking and sinking into the thick bank of smoke 
which now closed in the foot of the valley ; and 
even if no new motive had interposed, Lord Lucan 
could scarcely have withheld his decision many mo- 
ments more. What happened, however, was that, 
upon looking back, he perceived the Koyals and 
the Greys to be undergoing a destructive cross-fire ; 
and then, at all events, if it had not done so before, 
the terrible question forced itself upon him, and 
peremptorily exacted a decision. Should he risk Theques- 
the loss of his second brigade by flinging it after forced 
his first, or submit to one disaster (if disaster it was attention. 

* The apparently absolute indifference of Lord Lucan under this fire 
was specially remarked by an officer — not at all an admirer of his 
divisional chief — whose testimony enabled me to make the statement 
contained in a former page — p. 10. 

+ The same as Number Three Redoubt. 



282 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, to be) for the sake of avoiding fresh hazards % He 

i J < was the link which connected one brigade with the 

other; and so long as he might choose to hold fast 
to each, he would be realising his own conception of 
the several successive supports, and sustaining his 
Light Cavalry [ force with the power of his Heavy- 
Brigade : but also he would be grievously imperilling 
this, his second and last brigade, by drawing it down 
with him into the gulf where his first brigade seemed 
disappearing. Should he, then, hold fast or let go ? 
His deci- He let go. Elsewhere, the reasons which governed 
him shall be given in his own ampler words ; but the 
sentence which he uttered at the moment contains the 
pith of his argument. Determining that the Greys 
and the Koyals should at once be halted, he said to 
Lord William Paulet, ' They have sacrificed the Light 
' Brigade : they shall not the Heavy, if I can help it/ 
The Greys It was only after two successive movements in re- 
Royais treat that the Koyals and the Greys were relieved 
fau e back° from the fire to which they had been exposed. 
Severity of This fire had indeed been heavy; and — under 
which had conditions very trying to horsemen — both regiments 
taSedby sustained it with a firmness so admirable, that even 
ments™ 81 " the out-dazzling splendour of their morning's achieve- 
ment did not blind a skilled judge of such things to 
the merit of this warlike endurance. 

In the Royals alone — and this was a more than 
decimating loss — as many as twenty-one were disabled 
by death, or by wounds inflicted upon themselves or 
their horses. Colonel Yorke, the commanding officer, 
received a wound which cruelly shattered his leg, and 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



283 



he was disabled for life.* So also was Captain George CHAP. 
Campbell. Captain Elmsall and Lieutenant Hartopp « — J- — ' 
were, both of them, wounded severely ; and Lieu- 
tenant Eobertson had a horse shot under him. 

Lord Lucan had come to the conclusion that ' the Lord Lu- 
' only use to which the Heavy Brigade could be elusion as 
' turned was to protect the Light Cavalry against use tnat ly 
' pursuit in their return;' and he judged that for bTmade W 
that service the position to which he had now Heavy 
brought back the Heavy Dragoons was sufficiently Dra s oons - 
advanced. There, accordingly, the brigade remained The bri- 

gade kept 

halted. halted ac- 

Lord Lucan being present in person, General Scar- Qordmgly ' 
lett had no authority to determine upon the extent 
to which his brigade should be ventured in support- 
ing the advance of the Light Cavalry ; and at the 
time when the Heavy Dragoons received their first 
order to retreat, he was still unaware of the decision 
which had produced this result. Yielding to a natural 
eagerness, he had ridden forward some sixty yards 
in advance of his brigade: and I imagine that he General 

& to . Scarlett 

and Colonel Beatson (the aide-de-camp then at his and Coio- 
side) must have been the last of those acting with son. 
the Heavy Dragoons to whom the advancing brigade 
remained visible.t They saw our Light Cavalry fade 

* In support of Lord Lucan' s impression respecting the part taken 
by the Royals in the Heavy Cavalry charge the alleged acquiescence of 
Colonel Yorke in words addressed to him by Lord Lucan will be pro- 
bably insisted upon. If that should happen, it will be well to remem- 
ber that the shattering and terrible wound above mentioned long made 
it impossible for Colonel Yorke to undertake any such task as that of 
remonstrating against Lord Lucan's words. 

t This was the time when General Scarlett (finding suddenly that 



284 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAR 
X. 

The 

Light Bri- 
gade dis- 
appearing 
in the 
smoke at 
the foot of 
the valley. 

The full 
import of 
Lord Lu- 
can's de- 
cision. 



away into the smoke which hung thick at the foot of 
the valley. 

This parting was disruption — disruption in the very 
crisis of the exigency — disruption of that chain which 
hitherto had been binding into one the strength of 
the whole English cavalry. 

To repress the idea of going down with fresh troops 
to the rescue, to abstain from all part in the combat 
below the battery where the Light Brigade was 
engulfed, to allow the communication between the 
two brigades to remain broken without risking even 
one squadron in an attempt to restore it — this, all 
this, was the import of the painful decision to which, 
by a sense of hard duty, Lord Lucan had found him- 
self driven. 

Our present knowledge of what was going on at 
the foot of the valley tends to show that a decision 
in the opposite direction would have been likely to 
produce good and brilliant results ; * but that same 
present knowledge which we now have is exactly 
what at the time was most wanting : and of course 



his brigade was retiring, and not knowing that the movement had been 
ordered by Lord Lucan) sent back his trumpeter with orders to sound 
the halt. At the sound the brigade instantly halted, and fronted beauti- 
fully, as at parade. As I have named Colonel Beatson, let me here say 
that I have abundant proofs before me of the warmth with which Gene- 
ral Scarlett expressed his grateful recognition of the Colonel's services 
in the Crimea ; and it is only from the want of that detailed informa- 
tion which none but the Colonel himself — who is now (1868) in India — 
would be able to give me that I have been prevented from narrating 
the part that he personally took in the battle. See in the Appendix 
papers illustrative of his distinguished services. 

* See the state of the field as shown ante, p. 275, and the plan illus- 
trating the statement. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



285 



it is no more than right that the soundness of an CHAP, 
officer's judgment should be viewed in its relation to < — ^ — ' 
those circumstances only which were fairly within 
the range of his knowledge or surmise when he had 
to make his resolve. * 

The Heavy Dragoons at this time were but little Our 

. . Heavy 

if at all vexed by fire ; and there was nothing to Dragoons 
distract their thoughts from the Light Brigade, Or time when 
from the pain of dwelling on their own condition as Brigade^ 
bystanders withheld from the combat. At first, the ^ght°at° f 
grey boundary of their sight was from time to time ^ tailey. 
pierced by the flashes from the battery at the foot of 
the valley ; the thunder of the guns was still heard, 
and the round-shot, one after another, came bowling 
along up the slope ; but next there followed a time 
when the cloud at the foot of the valley remained blank 
without issues of flame, when a terrible quiet had suc- 
ceeded to the roar of artillery, when no token of the 
fight could be seen, except a disabled or straggling 
horseman or a riderless charger emerging here and 
there from the smoke. Thenceforth the cause of 
anguish to those who gazed down the valley was no 
longer in what they could now see or hear, but in 
what they otherwise knew, and in what they were 
forced to imagine. They knew that beyond the 
dim barrier, our Light Brigade was ingulfed. On 
the thought of what might be its fate they had to be 
dwelling, whilst they themselves remained halted. 

* With respect to Lord Kaglan's opinion as to the way in which 
Lord Lucan supported the Light Brigade, see his letter of the 16th of 
December 1854 in the Appendix. 



286 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. 

XIII. 

The Light We descend once again to the borders of the aque- 

Brigade. & ^ 

duct, where little more than two hundred of our 
horsemen, divided into several bodies, were hanging 
upon the retreat of almost the whole Russian cavalry ; 
but we go there, this time, with the knowledge that 
the ascendant of the few over the many will not be 
supported by the regiments which Lord Lucan was 
keeping in hand. 
Colonel On our right, and on the line of the principal road 

Mayow . " . r 1 

and his which led, over the bridge, to Tchorgoun, we left 
lancers. Colonel Mayow with some fifteen men of the 17th 
Lancers. Upon descrying the English squadron, 
which had come down, as we saw, in the direc- 
Their tion of his right rear, Mayow hastened to join it, 
with the and was presently in contact with the squadron 
sars. Has * which represented the 8th Hussars. It appeared that 
Colonel Shewell, the commander of the 8th Hussars, 
had not been killed or disabled ; and, Mayow being 
now once more in the presence of an officer senior to 
himself, the temporary command which the chances 
of battle had cast upon him came at once to an end. 
He had been commanding less than a score of men 
during only a few minutes; and yet, with these 
means and within this limit of time, he had attained 
to a height of fortune which is not always reached 
by those who are described in the army lists as field- 
marshals and generals. He had had sway in battle. 

The fifteen men whom Mayow had brought with 
him were ranged on the left of the 8th Hussars ; and 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 287 

this little addition brought up Colonel Shewell's C H A P. 
strength to about seventy. The panic which was < — ^ — » 
driving from the field the whole bulk of the enemy's 
horse plainly did not extend to the Eussian infantry 
on the eastern part of the Causeway Heights ; for Liprandi's 
looking back towards their then right rear, our Hus- on the 
sars at this time were able to see the grey battalions Heights* 7 
still holding their ground, in good order. Nor was 
this all ; for presently the glances cast back in nearly 
the same direction disclosed some new-comers. 

Three squadrons of Eussian lancers were seen issu- Three 
ing from behind one of the spurs of the Causeway of Jerop- 
Heights and descending into the valley. Another Lancers 
instant, and this body of Lancers was wheeling into Sg^nTJar 
line, and forming a front towards the Eussian rear, Hussars!* 1 
thus interposing itself as a bar between the English 
and their line of retreat. These three squadrons of 
Lancers — the half of Colonel Jeropkines regiment — 
were the force which had been placed, as we saw, 
in one of the folds of the Causeway Heights at the 
time when Liprandi Avas making arrangements for 
covering his retreat. 

At the moment when Colonel Mayow joined the 
8 th Hussars, Colonel She well had asked him, ' where 
' Lord Cardigan was ; ; * and Mayow having replied 

* This question of ' Where is Lord Cardigan ? ' will be found recur- 
ring ; but commanders of course cannot be everywhere at the same time, 
and it must not be understood that when an officer asks this question, he 
inf erentially suggests ground of blame against the general for not being 
visible at a particular moment and on a particular spot. It is right, 
however, to mention these dialogues ; because they show, or tend to 
show, a devolution of authority creating fresh responsibilities. Thus, 
for instance, it resulted from the dialogue given in the text that Colonel 



288 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



charge. 



CHAP, that he did not know, it resulted that Colonel Shew ell, 
' — ^ — ' as the senior officer present, became charged with the 
shewefi ^ u ty °^ determining how the emergency should be 
officerhT met troo P s within reach of his orders. It does 

gency mer no ^ nowever > appear that there was much scope for 
doubt. After an almost momentary consultation with 
the senior officers present, including Colonel Mayow 
and Major de Salis, Colonel Shewell gave the word 
' Right about wheel ! ' and the squadron, with its ad- 
junct of fifteen Lancers, came round at once with the 
His neatness of well-practised troops on parade. Colonel 
Shewell and Major de Salis put themselves in the 
front, and Lieutenant Seager commanded the one 
squadron into which, as we saw, the remains of the 
8th Hussars had been fused. Mayow led the small 
band of Lancers which had attached itself to the 
Hussars. 

The seventy horsemen rode straight at the flutter- 
ing line of gay lances which the enemy was then in 
the very act of forming. The three Eussian squadrons 
thus wheeling into line were at a distance from She- 
well of something less than 300 yards, and the two 
leading squadrons had already established their line, 
but the third squadron was still in process of wheel- 
ing. Once more in this singular battle of horsemen, 
our people had before them a body of cavalry which 
passively awaited the charge. With his seventy 
against three hundred, Shewell needed some such 
counterbalancing advantage as that; but he might 

Shewell, as senior officer, became the commander of that part of the first 
line which was within reach of his directions. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



289 



have lost his occasion if he had been wanting in that CHAP, 
swiftness of decision which is one of the main condi- < — ^ — ' 
tions of excellence in a cavalry officer, for it was to be 
inferred that upon the completion of the manoeuvre 
by their third squadron, the Eussians would charge 
down on our people. 

Colonel Shewell proved equal to the occasion. He 
lost not one moment. He was a man whose mind 
had received a deep impress from some of the con- 
tents of the Bible ; but those who might differ from 
his opinions still recognised in him a man of high 
honour who extended the authority of conscience to 
the performance of military duties ; and it has not 
been found in practice that a piety strictly founded 
on the Holy Testaments (taken fairly, the one with 
the other) has any such softening tendency as to unfit 
a man for the task of fierce bodily conflict.* 

As in the battles of old times, so now, and not for 
the first time, this day, he who was the chief on one 
side singled out for his special foe the man who 
seemed chief on the other. Shewell had not the advan- 
tage of being highly skilled as a swordsman, and being 
conscious of his deficiency in this respect, he asked 
himself how best he could act. The result was that 
he determined to rely upon the power which can be 
exerted by sheer impact. He resolved that, whilst 

* One of Shewell's companions in arms — a man well entitled to 
deliver a judgment on the merits of his lost comrade — has said of him, 
' I knew the man with whom I had to deal — I knew that I was dealing 
4 with one of the most honourable, the most gallant, the most consci- 
* entious, the most single-minded man it has ever been my good fortune 
1 to meet with.' 



VOL. IV. 



T 



290 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, charging at the head of his little band of horsemen, he 
* — 5 — » would single out the Eussian officer whom he perceived 
to be the leader of the opposing force, and endeavour 
to overthrow him by the shock of a heavy concussion. 
To do this the more effectively he discarded the lessons 
of the riding-school, clenched a rein in each hand, got 
his head somewhat down ; and, as though he were 
going at a leap which his horse, unless forced, might 
refuse, drove full at the Eussian chief. The assailant 
came on so swift, so resolute, and, if so one may speak, 
with such a conscientious exactness of aim that, for 
the Eussian officer who sat in his saddle under the 
disadvantage of having to await the onset, there re- 
mained no alternative at the last moment but either to 
move a little aside or else be run down without mercy 
by this straightforward pious hussar. As was only 
natural, the charger of the Russian officer shrank aside 
to avoid the shock ; and She well, still driving straight 
on, with all his momentum unchecked, broke through 
the two ranks of the Lancers. He was well followed 
Defeat and by his seventy horsemen. Upon their close approach 
thf^us- some of the Eussian Lancers turned and made off ; 
cers. Lan " but the rest stood their ground and received the shock 
prepared for them. By that shock, however, they 
were broken and overthrown. It is true that in the 
moment of the impact, or in the moments immediately 
following, men had, some of them, a fleeting oppor- 
tunity for the use of the sword or the lance, and one 
at least of our Hussars received a great number of 
slight wounds from the enemy's spearheads ; but the 
clash was brief. The whole of these three Eussian 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



291 



squadrons were quickly in retreat, a part of them CHAP, 
going back into the fold betwixt the Causeway < — ^ — * 
Heights, from which just before they had issued, 
whilst the rest fled across to the Fedioukine Hills ; 
and there is reason for inferring that these last 
attached themselves to the other three squadrons of 
their regiment which had been posted, as we saw, on 
the northern side of the valley. 

After having thus conquered their way through the Sheweii's 
body of Lancers opposed to them, Colonel Shewell 
and those who had followed him in his victorious 
charge could see a good way up the valley; but 
their eyes searched in vain for an English force 
advancing to their support ; and, in truth, the very 
attempt which Jeropkine's Lancers had just been mak- 
ing, went far to show that no English succours were 
near ; for it is evident that the endeavour to cut off 
our Hussars by showing a front towards the Eussian 
rear would never have been made by troops which 
were able to see a red squadron coming down to the 
support of their comrades. Therefore, having now 
cut open a retreat not only for themselves, but also 
for such of the other remnants of the Light Brigade 
as might be near enough to seize the occasion, 
Shewell's regiment and the men who had joined it 
continued to pursue the direction in which they had 
charged, in other words, to retire. Colonel Shewell, it 
seems, did not judge that the condition of things was 
such as to warrant any attempt at the usual operation 
of governing a retreat by fronting from time to time 
with a portion of the force ; and those who remained 



292 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, of the seventy had only to withdraw up the valley 
' — J — • with such speed as they could. In this movement 
they were followed by Captain Jenyns and the few 
men of the first line — men chiefly, it is supposed, 
of the 13th Light Dragoons — who had been acting 
under his guidance, or riding, at all events, near him. 

When our retreating horsemen had ridden clear 
of Jeropkine's discomfited Lancers, they began once 
more to incur severe fire from those batteries on the 
Causeway Heights, and those rifles in the same part of 
the field which had thinned their ranks during the 
advance ; but they were not molested by cavalry, and 
they observed, without knowing the cause of the 
change, that there was silence on the Fedioukine Hills.' 55 ' 
It happened, as might be expected, that, in the trail 
of our small body of retreating Hussars, there were 
both mounted and dismounted men who had been so 
disabled by their own wounds or by the wounds or 
the overwearied state of their horses as to be more or 
less lagging behind. The sight of these disabled horse- 
men did not so far tempt Jeropkine's defeated squad- 
rons as to bring them all back into the valley ; but his 
Lancers, here and there coming singly, or else in small 
knots, pressed on for a time, in pursuit, and killed or 
took some of the stragglers. Amongst others moving 
on foot was Major de Salis. With a rare generosity 
he had given up his own charger to a disabled trooper 
of the 8th Hussars, and the Major was seen leading 
the horse whilst the wounded man sat in the saddle. 

* This result, as we know, was owing to D'Allonville's attack with 
the Chasseurs d'Afrique. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



293 



Soon the efforts of the enemy's horsemen to kill or CHAP, 
take any straggler they might find in their power « — ^ — - 
were checked by their own fellow-countrymen ; for 
the gunners who manned the batteries on the 
Causeway Heights would not suffer their energies to 
be paralysed by the presence of a few Russian Lancers, 
intermixed here and there with our stragglers ; and 
when it became plain that Jeropkine's horsemen were 
incurring fire from their own brethren, the trumpet 
sounded the recall, and they desisted from their 
efforts. Then some of our disabled horsemen, who 
had been surrounded by Lancers, were enabled, after 
all, to escape. Thus, for instance, Lieutenant Phil- 
lips, who had just had his horse shot under him, and 
Private Brown, who had been disabled in both hands, 
were attacked by Lancers ; and although Phillips was 
able to keep off the assailants with his revolver, both 
he and the soldier whom he was protecting must have 
been on the point of being either despatched or taken, 
when, the recall being sounded, the Lancers rode off, 
and both Phillips and the soldier he had guarded 
made good their way back to our lines. * In like man- 
ner also Lieutenant Clowes, whose horse had been 
shot under him, and who was himself wounded by 
grape, found himself freed from the Lancers who had 
had him in their power ; but he was so much exhausted 
by loss of blood as to be unable to drag himself far. 

* Major Phillips, it seems, believed the wounded man to be dead ; 
and is anxious to have it understood that ' beyond the mere accident of 
' coming near at the time ' he ' had no share in defending Brown/ — 
Note to Second Edition. 



294 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. After the close of the battle he was picked up by the 
• — J- — ' Kussians, and became, of course, their prisoner. 

XIV. 

The nth When last we were glancing at the state of the 
and the combat on our extreme left, Colonel Douglas with his 
Dragoons*. Hth Hussars was pursuing a body of the enemy's 
cavalry far down towards the strip of low ground 
which divides the eastern slope of the Fedioukine 
Hills from the banks of the aqueduct ; whilst Lord 
George Paget, with the 4th Light Dragoons (except- 
ing, it seems, a part of the regiment still busied in 
resisting the enemy's attempt to carry off some of 
the guns), was once more endeavouring to co-operate 
with Colonel Douglas, and for that purpose pushing 
on his advance in the right rear of the 11th Hussars. 
The 4th Light Dragoons was in a somewhat dis- 
organised state, brought about by its recent combat 
in the battery, where each man, speaking generally, 
had been fighting in his own way. 
Their Colonel Douglas had carried his pursuit far down 

towards the bank of the aqueduct, when at length he 
found himself confronted by bodies of cavalry too 
large to be fair opponents for his little band of 
Hussars. He therefore fell back; and the Eussian 
cavalry, in their turn, made a show of pursuing, but 
in a harmless, irresolute way. Presently the 4th 
Light Dragoons, whilst advancing, was met on its 
left front by the 11th Hussars in retreat ; and at the 
sight of their comrades retiring, the men of the 4th 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



295 



Light Dragoons being still in the disorganised state CHAP, 
which had resulted from its desultory combat in the « — J- — » 
battery, were surprised into an act of imitation. 
They hesitated, stopped, and, without word of com- 
mand, went about, aligning themselves in their 
retreat with the 11th Hussars. 

Masses of the enemy's cavalry were at this time Approach 
pursuing the 11th Hussars, and the foremost bodies Russian 
of them were already within about forty yards, but in pursuit. m 
a disorderly state, and disclosing once more that ap- 
pearance of hesitation and bewilderment which had 
been observed in the morning at the time of the Heavy 
Cavalry charge ; but the enemy was overwhelmingly 
strong in numbers, and now that two English regi- 
ments had successively retreated before him, it was to 
be expected, of course, that he would begin to act with 
increasing boldness. 

When Lord George Paget saw the enemy's horse at Lord 
a distance of only some forty yards from our two re- Paget's 
treating regiments, he judged the moment to be criti- nT^regi* 
cal. With the whole power of his voice, he shouted ment * 
out to his Dragoons, ' If you don't front, my boys, we 
' are done !' 

Lord Anglesea used to say that £ cavalry are the 
' bravest fellows in the world in advance ; but that 
' when once they get into a scrape, and have their 
' backs turned to the enemy, it is a difficult matter to 
' stop and rally them/ If Lord George was perchance 
one of those who had heard this saying from the lips 
of his father, he could hardly have been without some 
misgiving. For once, however, the saying did not 



296 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, hold good. The men of the two regiments who at 
< — $i — . this moment remained together were only, as was 
computed, about 70 in number, and not, as a body, 
in a good state of order; but nevertheless, at the 
word of command, they came to a halt, and began to 
front towards the enemy. It was at this time that 
the young Lieutenant Jolliffe did opportune service. 
Facing boldly towards the newly fronting troopers in 
despite of the numbers advancing against him from 
behind, he held up his sword for a rally, and so well 
used his voice as to be able to cause numbers of the 
4th Light Dragoon men who were straggling and 
bewildered to understand what had to be done, and 
its effect, at once form up with their comrades. At the sight 
of the front thus presented to them, the Eussians 
were instantly checked ; and it is believed that our 
troops saved themselves from a crushing disaster 
by their ready obedience to Lord George Paget's 
appeal. 

Discovery But during the very moments that were occupied 
of Russian by this operation of fronting towards the pursuers, it 
formed up was becoming known to our officers and men that 
HneTfre! the enemy had interposed a fresh body of horse in a 
treat. neW) an( l indeed opposite, quarter. Eoger Palmer — 
that young Lieutenant of the 11th Hussars to whom 
the Eussian colonel had delivered his sword — was 
singularly gifted with long sight, and casting his 
glance towards our left rear, he saw in that direction, 
but at a distance of several hundred yards, a consider- 
able body of cavalry, which he assured himself must 
be Eussian. He reported this to his chief. Colonel 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



297 



Douglas at first scarce believed that the squadrons CHAP, 
thus observed could be Eussian ; and, it being per- - — ^ — » 
ceptible that the force consisted of Lancers, men were 
able, for a while, to indulge a pleasant surmise, and 
to imagine that the Lancers descried in our rear, at a 
distance of several hundred yards, must be our own 
* Seventeenth/ Presently, however, Eoger Palmer 
convinced Colonel Douglas that the head-gear of the 
cavalry descried was Eussian ; and in another mo- 
ment all doubt was at an end; for our officers and 
men could then see that the newly-interposed troops 
were formed up across the slope of the valley, with a 
front towards the Eussian rear, as though barring 
the retreat of our people. So, there being then 
certain knowledge that the English were between two 
powerful bodies of Eussian cavalry, it became neces- 
sary to use the very next moments in determining Means for 
how to meet the emergency. Seeing Major Low thefemfr- 
close to him on the left, Lord George Paget, it seems, gency * 
exclaimed : ' We are in a desperate scrape. What 
' the devil shall we do ? ' And in the next moment 
Lord George seems to have perceived that the answer 
to the question he had put should be elicited from 
some one entitled to command. 

It was evidently with that purpose in his mind, 
and not from any notion of indulging in irony, that 
Lord George then asked the same question which 
had been put once before, but on the other side of the 
valley — the question of ' Where is Lord Cardigan ? ' 
Whatever were the terms of the answer elicited from 
Major Low, it became plain that for the moment, 



298 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, at all events, no guidance was to be had from the 
^—^^ General commanding the Brigade, and that the 
emergency must be met without the aid of Lord 
Cardigan.* Lord George Paget was the senior 
officer present; and the few rapid words which he 
and Colonel Douglas found time to exchange were 
enough to prove them agreed upon the course that 
ought to be taken, f 

It was determined that, with the whole of the little 
band which had been formed from the remnants of 
the two united regiments, our men should endeavour 
as best they could to break through the newly-inter- 
posed force of Eussian Lancers, and should do this 
without persisting in the attempt to oppose a front to 
the cavalry advancing from the opposite direction. 
Our men well understood the predicament in which 
they stood ; and Lord George Paget holloaed out to 
them, 'Well, you must go about, and do the best you 
' can. Threes about !' 

The order was obeyed, and both regiments now 
fronted towards the body of Lancer which stood 
barring their line of retreat. In both regiments 
strenuous exertions were made to get the men to- 
gether ; and wherever, in this little band, an officer 
sat in his saddle, there also there was a sword in the 
air, and a voice commanding the rally. The force 

* Of the purport of the answer given to this question I have not yet 
obtained sufficing proof; but its alleged tenor will be found in the 
affidavits of Edden and David Thomas. 

f In the circumstances stated should it be judged that the whole of 
the body thus acting in concert came out under the command of Lord 
George Paget ? 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



299 



was joined by some troopers belonging to the first CHAP, 
line. « — ^ — » 

In the hastily-attempted array which was now in 
some slight measure formed, the (proper) rear-rank 
formed the front, and the officers had to follow, instead 
of leading, their line. In such a position they were 
evidently more likely than the rest of the force to be 
cut off by the Eussian Lancers : but this was not all ; 
for behind them, as we know, and at a distance of 
but a few yards, they had the bodies of the Eussian 
cavalry which had come up in pursuit from the neigh- 
bourhood of the aqueduct. Thus placed, our officers 
were not only exposed beyond measure to the dangers 
of the hour, but also shut back in positions unfavour- 
able to the exercise of command. 

With but little attempt at the preservation of 
order, the English horsemen moved off at such speed 
as they could command, driving straight towards the 
thicket of lances which threatened to bar their 
retreat. They presently began to incur the fire 
of some Eussian artillery; but, upon the whole, 
this effort of the enemy's gunners proved to be an 
advantage to our people, for, without inflicting heavy 
loss upon our retreating horsemen, it delivered them 
from the pursuit of the cavalry in their then rear. 
The body of Eussian Lancers which stood barring the 
retreat of our horsemen was that moiety of Jeropkine's 
six squadrons which had been placed, as we saw, on 
the north side of the valley, and in the fold of the 
hills enclosing the road from Tractir; but there is 
reason for believing that these three squadrons had 



300 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, been joined by some portions at least, if not by the 
« — J. — ' whole of those other three squadrons through which 

Colonel Shewell had broken. 
Position Hitherto, the position taken up by the Lancers 
terposed now undertaking to cut off Lord George Paget and 
Douglas had been exactly of the same kind as that 
of the three squadrons on the other side of the val- 
ley widen attempted, and attempted in vain, to bar 
Colonel She well's retreat ; for, just as their comrades 
had done before, these Lancers stood ranged with a 
front towards the Kussian rear ; but, upon the nearer 
approach of our people, the force they were going to 
assail disclosed a new plan of action ; and it is not 
improbable that the overthrow w T hich the first three 
squadrons had undergone, may have so far influ- 
enced Colonel Jeropkine as to cause this change in 
his tactics. 

its forma- The force, it seems, was a double column of squad- 
apparent rons, having two strong squadrons abreast, and being 
strength. ^ wo ^ jf n0 £ ^ ree squadrons deep.* It was in a per- 

* We saw that the portion of Jeropkine's Lancers which was ori- 
ginally placed on this side of the valley consisted of only three 
squadrons ; but we also saw, that of the other three squadrons over- 
thrown "by Colonel Shewell some part at once crossed the valley, 
and it is evidently probable that they did this with the intention of 
joining their comrades in the gorge of the Tractir road. Also, those 
of the Lancers who at first fled southward, must have found in a few 
moments that they were flying from nothing ; and it seems likely that 
they too would very soon turn or cross over the valley, to the point 
where their comrades were stationed. I am able to say, on good 
grounds, that the time which intervened between Shewell's combat 
and the affair I am now speaking of, was sufficient to allow of this 
movement taking place. Upon the whole, it seems probable that all 
the six squadrons of the regiment were at this time together, and if so, 
the column with its front of two, had a depth of three squadrons. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



301 



feet state of formation, and directly confronting our CHAP. 

retreating horsemen ; but when the remnants of the < J > 

two English regiments drew near them, the com- 
mander of these Kussian Lancers retracted all at once its sudden 

change of 

the right shoulder, and wheeled his squadrons half front, 
back ; so that, instead of continuing to oppose a 
direct barrier in the face of our returning Dragoons, 
his force now stood ranged in such way as to flank 
the line of retreat, and became, in that way, much 
more formidable than before. The movement was 
executed with a precision which made the strength 
of the close serried squadrons seem more than ever 
overwhelming to the few score of English horsemen 
now moving, each man as he could, with hardly a 
trace of formation. The evident purpose of the ma- 
noeuvre was to enable the Eussian column to descend 
upon the flank of the English, and overwhelm them 
at the moment of passing. The direction in which 
the English moved was such that, supposing it to 
continue unchanged, the Eussian column would have 
a distance of about thirty yards to go through in 
order to come down upon the flank of our horsemen 
at the intended moment. 

When he saw this manoeuvre and detected its 
purpose, Lord George Paget determined that he 
would endeavour to oppose some semblance of a front 
to the new front the enemy had formed ; and accord- 
ingly he shouted to the men, ' Throw up your left 
' flank ! ' But in the din which prevailed, his words, 
it would seem, were but little heard ; and, instead of 
attempting, as they moved, to form up a front to- 



302 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, wards their right, our people, in the course they now 
« — ^ — > took, inclined somewhat to their left. 
Advance At a moment which seems to have been rightly 
den halt enough chosen, the Russian column commenced its 
column, advance, and descended at a trot to the very verge of 
the point where the two hostile forces thus moving at 
right angles with one another seemed going to meet ; 
but then all at once the column was halted, and again 
the Eussian horsemen displayed that same air of hesi- 
tation and bewilderment which our people had ob- 
served several times before on that day — hesitation 
and bewilderment not apparently resulting from any 
want of firmness on the part of the men, but rather 
from their not knowing what to do next. 

When a body of cavalry has been moved forward 
some way at a gallop, or even at a trot, and then is 
brought to a halt, it very commonly happens that 
the flanks overshoot the centre, and render the line 
concave. It was so with the Eussian column ; and 
its right flank especially, at the moment of the halt, 
had swung forward in advance of the centre. There- 
fore now when our horsemen undertook to ride 
across the front of the column, they had before them 
some lancers on the extreme right of the enemy's 
line, who had so far edged forward as to be directly 
obstructing the path of retreat ; but with this excep- 
tion, the foe our men had to overcome or evade was 
entirely on their right flank. 
Thenature Then there occurred a contact of hostile forces for 
collision which, I imagine, it would be hard to find a parallel. 
In a very irregular body, and with a hardly per- 




I 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



303 



ceptible trace of their old line formation, the English CHAP, 
went on ; and the Eussian mass then advancing a little, « — ^ — ' 
or rather, it might be said, heaving forward, colli- curred?" 
sion occurred. The body retreating grazed its right 
flank against the enemy's front ; but, incredible as it 
may seem, was allowed to scrape by, moving right 
across the faces of the men in the foremost rank, 
and receiving or parrying the thrusts of their lances 
without undergoing any other than that momentary 
attack which a lancer who remains strictly halted 
can attempt against a dragoon in the act of galloping 
past him. What happened was that those of the 
English horsemen who chanced to be on the extreme 
right of their retreating body, found themselves so 
close to the enemy's lances as to have to fend them 
off with the sabre ; but the number of attacks which 
any one man had to encounter whilst passing along 
the front of two squadrons, was not, it seems, so 
great as might be imagined ; and Lord George Paget, 
whose position exposed him more than most others, 
had said that the number of lances which he had to 
ward off with his sword did not exceed three or four. 
It was well for our horsemen that the foe was on 
their right flank, where the sword-arm could work 
with advantage."'* 

Along the main part of the Eussian front, each 
collision, if so it can be called, which occurred, be- 

* Since the period spoken of in the text, the broadsword exercise of 
our cavalry has been so altered, under the suggestion, I believe, of Major 
Miller (late of the Scots Greys) as to provide better guards than before 
on the side of the bridle-arm. 



304 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, tween lancer and swordsman, was a collision of 
» — ^ — • barely one moment ; because the assailant, in each 
instance was not an unfettered man, but the mere 
component of a mass which had come to a halt; 
whilst every rider assailed was a rider in movement 
— a rider driving past the fixed column as swiftly as 
his tired beast could go, and rasped only, if so one 
may speak, by a thicket of lances in passing : but in 
that part of the enemy's right flank where his squad- 
rons curled round in front of our people, the struggle 
which proved to be necessary for forcing a passage 
was somewhat less momentary; and Lieutenant 
Eoger Palmer, for one, became engaged at that point 
in what may be called a personal combat. This 
brief combat ended, however, as did the other col- 
lisions, in the failure of every attempt to cut off 
the retreat of the English; and, without receiving 
much harm in the course of this singular traverse 
our people got past.** 'We got by them/ writes 
one of our officers, — ■ we got by them — how, I know 
' not. It is a mystery to me. . . . There is one 
6 explanation, and one only- — the hand of God was 
■ upon us ! ' 

That is an explanation of the deliverance from a 
cavalry scrape which lies out of the reach of dispute ; 
but if any gross mortals, intent on mere War-Office 
business were attempting to examine causation at the 

* It is possible that men might have been unhorsed and killed by 
the Russian lancers without its becoming known that the deaths were 
so occasioned ; but my impression is that few casualties resulted from 
this encounter. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



305 



terrestrial end of the chain, it might be useful for C H A P. 
them to know in what stage of each combat it was - — ^ — - 
that this hesitating embarrassment of the Eussian 
cavalry so often evinced itself; and there is the 
more reason for the inquiry since the firmness of the 
Muscovite soldier is so well established as to exclude 
the explanation which might be applicable to the 
troops of a less valorous nation, if they were to be 
frequently disclosiDg incompetence in the critical 
moment of a combat. The bewilderment of the 
Eussian cavalry has almost always disclosed itself at 
that very point where the lessons acquired in the 
exercise-ground, or even in mock battles at home, 
would carry the pupil no ' further ; and hardly any 
instance of this could well be more striking than 
the one we have just seen displayed by Jeropkines 
Lancers. Long and painfully trained, those docile 
Muscovites had come all at once to the border which 
divides the things that are military from the things 
that are warlike. Whenever they charged at St 
Petersburg under the eyes of father Nicholas, the 
son of Paul, they always, of course, stopped short 
without doing harm to those other troops of their 
Czar who might make-believe to oppose them. 
They had now done no less, but also no more. It 
might sound paradoxical to say that the remnants of 
these two English regiments owed their escape to the 
high state of discipline to which their adversaries had 
been wrought; but certainly if this Eussian mass 
had consisted of an equal number of bold, angry 
ploughmen on horseback, with pitchforks in hand, the 
VOL. iv. u 



306 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, eighty or ninety disordered dragoons who might try 
• — ^ — ' to brush across the faces of their rough foes, would 
be in danger of incurring grave losses. As it was, 
our people found themselves saved yet again, as they 
had been saved before, by the bewilderment of troops 
who were too e military ' to be warlike. 
Continued It was something for our people to be no longer 
the two encountered in their homeward course by a barrier of 
regiments, hostile cavalry ; but at the first aspect of it, their 
plight was still desperate ; for being but few, and in 
disorder, and having a long extent of uphill ground 
which must be traversed before they would stand in 
safety, they were on horses now cruelly jaded ; whilst 
the hostile squadrons behind them had not only the 
strength and the weight of numbers and of solid 
formation, but also were fresh. 

However, those Eussian artillerymen who had 
twice before guarded our cavalry by toiling for its 
destruction, now once more helped its retreat. It is 
true that, from a cause then unknown to our retreat- 
ing horsemen (who, of course, had not witnessed 
the achievement of D'Allonville and his Chasseurs 
d'Afrique), the guns on the Fedioukine Hills which 
had shattered their ranks whilst advancing were now 
silent ; but from the Causeway Heights on the opposite 
side of the valley there opened a diligent fire against 
the remnants of the two retreating regiments ; and 
as before had occurred with other bodies of the 
enemy's cavalry, so now this new effort of the Eus- 
sian artillerymen served to keep back J eropkine s 
Lancers, and prevent them from undertaking the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



307 



destructive pursuit of our horsemen, which would CHAP, 
otherwise have been in their power. ' — ^ — • 

Besides being scanty in numbers, these retreating 
remnants of the 4th Light Dragoons and the 11th 
Hussars were by this time so much broken up into 
small groups, or knots, or single horsemen, that they 
no longer presented to the enemy's gunners the broad 
easy mark that is offered by a regiment of cavalry in 
a state of formation ; but if there was now no formed 
squadron that could be opened and cleaved by shell 
or by round-shot, each dragoon individually still had 
to be reckoning on the death that might come the 
next moment ; and this the last trial which the 
soldier passed through was that of riding for life, 
with the torment of being forced to ride slowly ; 
for he had to toil on uphill under a heavy fire, at 
the laggard and always decreasing pace which re- 
presented the utmost remaining power of his wearied 
horse. 

The ground traversed by these remnants of the 4th 
Light Dragoons and the 11th Hussars was strewn 
with such ruins of brilliant squadrons as might well 
be more distressing to them than to any other regi- 
ment, except, perhaps, the 1 7th Lancers. Lord George 
Paget's and Colonel Douglas's regiments in the course 
of their advance had encountered ugly traces of battle, 
but they now, as they rode, saw the marks of a yet 
more terrible havoc ; and, this time a great pro- 
portion of those they saw dead, or dying, or cruelly 
disabled, were men of their own regiment. Amongst 
the wounded comrades and friends thus passed, some 



308 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, were walking erect, though feebly, some limping, 
• — ^ — ' some crawling ; and it was grievous to have to see 
the still living remains of horses with the trappings 
upon them of the 4th Light Dragoons or the 11th 
Hussars, some violently struggling to get up, though 
perhaps with more than one limb shattered, or floun- 
dering back with cruel weight upon their disabled 
riders. Of those who lay wounded and dying upon 
the ground thus retraced by our people, there was one 
who extended his arm, saying — but no, I pass on, and* 
yet leave here the half-written sentence. There are 
some to whom it will speak. 

As the pace of each rider had long since had no 
other limit than the last strength of his sinking horse, 
it resulted, of course, that, after a while, the single 
horseman and the groups or knots of those who kept 
together were divided by lengthened intervals. The 
greater number of them were still toiling on up the 
valley under heavy fire without knowing how much 
further they would have to go before they might call 
their lives their own, when at length — and this came 
by surprise — they all at once caught a glad sound. 
In their front they heard an English cheer. It ceased, 
but was presently followed by another, and then 
again by another. These greetings were the welcome 
bestowed by spectators upon each officer or group of 
horsemen coming up the incline, and returning, as it 
were, from out of the abyss. 

Lord George Paget (whose wearied horse had long 
been failing him in pace) was one of the last of the 
shattered brigade who rode labouring in up the valley. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



309 



Some officers moved forward to greet him, and one of CHAP. 

these was Lord Cardigan. « — ^ , 

Lord George Paget then uttered an exclamation 
which has now no importance either historical or 
personal ; but it had a bearing, some thought, upon a 
question formerly in controversy, and was therefore, at 
one time, so much spoken of that the suppression of the 
words (though they are now altogether immaterial) 
might confuse, and be misunderstood. Seeing Lord 
Cardigan approach composedly from an opposite direc- 
tion, Lord George Paget exclaimed to him, 6 Holloa ! 
' Lord Cardigan, weren't you there % ' Naturally, the 
bystanders smiled ; but Lord Cardigan saw that no 
jest was intended, and answered at once with perfect 
simplicity and truthfulness as one soldier might to 
another.* 

Lord George Paget now ventured — he seemed to Lord 
be speaking in grief, and in apprehension of the Paget's 
dismal answer he might receive — he ventured to ask to q thSate 
after the fate of the first line. ' I am afraid/ he said, une!* 6 ^ 
' there are no such regiments in existence as the 13th 
6 and 17th, for — I can give no account of them/ 



* According to the version which I prefer — and it does not much 
differ from others — Lord Cardigan answered, ' Wasn't I, though 1 ' and 
then turning to Captain Jenyns said, ' Here, Jenyns, did not you see me 
4 at the guns ? ' Jenyns answered that he did; and he could well bear 
witness, because he was very near to Lord Cardigan at the moment of 
his entering the battery. The colloquy never had any importance, 
except in so far as it tended to show that there was an interval of time 
between the retreat of Lord Cardigan and that of Lord George Paget ; 
and its value in that respect has been superseded by the ampler know- 
ledge we now possess — knowledge placing the fact beyond the reach of 
doubt. 



310 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. Hardly, however, had he spoken, when he saw on the 

- J i brow of the hill some clusters of men standing by 

their horses, and among them some Lancers. Then he 
knew — for the English had only one Lancer regiment 
— that, so far at least as concerned the 17th, the dis- 
aster fell short of extinction. 



XV. 

The escape One of those who returned to our lines with the 
George remnant of the 4th Light Dragoons had been a pris- 
weii m * oner in the hands of the enemy. I speak of Sir 
George Wombwell, then an extra aide-de-camp to 
Lord Cardigan. When last we saw Wombwell he 
was not far from the front of the battery, but his 
charger had just been shot under him. He so quickly 
succeeded in catching and mounting a stray horse as 
to be able to join the 4th Light Dragoons when they 
came on, and advance with them down to the guns. 
There, however, his newly-caught horse was killed 
under him (as his own charger had been some minutes 
before), and, this time, he found himself surrounded by 
twenty or thirty Eussian Lancers, who took from him 
his sword and his pistol, and made him prisoner. It 
happened that Captain Morris (then also, as we know, 
a prisoner, and with his head deeply cut and pierced 
by sabre and lance) was brought to the spot where 
Wombwell stood ; and it is interesting to observe that, 
in spite of his own dreadful condition, Morris had still 
a word of timely counsel that he could give to a 
brother officer. ' Look out/ he said to Wombwell — 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



311 



' look out and catch a horse/ At that moment, two CHAP, 
or three loose horses came up, and Wombwell, darting . — J. — . 
suddenly forward from between the Eussian Lancers 
who had captured him, seized and mounted one of 
these riderless chargers, and galloped forward to meet 
the 4th Light Dragoons, which he then saw retiring. 
He succeeded in joining the regiment, and, with it, 
returned to our lines. 

When Captain Morris (unhorsed and grievously The escape 
wounded) found himself surrounded by Eussian dra- Moms! am 
goons, it was to an officer, as we saw, that he surren- 
dered his sword/" That officer, however, quickly dis- 
appeared, and then the Eussian horsemen — Morris 
took them to be Cossacks — rushed in upon their pris- 
oner, and not only robbed him of all he had about 
him, but convinced him by their manner and bearing 
that they were inclined to despatch him. Morris, 
therefore, broke away from them, and ran into the 
midst of the thickest smoke he could see. Then, 
a riderless horse passing close to him, Morris caught 
at the rein, and was dragged by it a short distance, 
but afterwards fell and became unconscious. 

Upon regaining his senses Morris became aware of 
the presence of a Cossack, who seemed as though he 
had just passed him, but was looking back in a way 
which seemed to indicate that he had seen the Eng- 
lish officer move, and would therefore despatch him. 
Morris gathered strength from the emergency, found 
means to get on his feet, and once more sought shelter 
in the thickest smoke near him. Whilst standing 

* See ante, p. 248. 



312 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, there, he found himself almost run down by another 
« — ^ — • loose charger, but was able to catch hold of the horse's 
rein, and to mount him. He turned the horse s head 
up the valley, and rode as fast as he could ; but just 
as he fancied he was getting out of the cross-fire his 
new horse was shot under him, and fell with him to 
the ground, giving him a heavy fall, and rolling over 
his thigh. Then again for some time Morris was un- 
conscious ; and when he regained his senses, he found 
that the dead horse was lying across his leg, and keep- 
ing him fastened to the ground. He then ' set to 
' work ' to extricate his leg, and at length succeeded 
in doing so. Then, getting on his feet, he ran on as 
well as he could, stumbling and getting up over and 
over again, but always taking care to be moving up 
hill, till at last, when quite worn out, he found him- 
self close to the dead body of an English Staff-officer 
— the body, he presently saw, of his friend Nolan. 

Eemembering that Nolan had fallen at a very early 
period in advance of the brigade, Morris inferred that 
he must be nearly within the reach of his fellow-coun- 
trymen ; so, being now quite exhausted, he laid him- 
self down beside the body of his friend, and again 
became unconscious. 

Besides the three deep ugly wounds received in his 
head, Morris, in the course of these his struggles for 
life had suffered a longitudinal fracture or split of the 
right arm, and several of his ribs were broken.* 
There was a circumstance in the lives of Nolan and 

* The longitudinal splitting of the arm was of the kind, which, it 
seems, is scientifically described as a ' Saliswitch fracture.' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



313 



Morris which made it the more remarkable that the CHAP, 
dead body of the one and the shattered frame of the « — — • 
other should be thus lying side by side. On the flank ^LNoian. 
march, Morris and Nolan, who were great allies, had 
communicated to each other a common intention of 
volunteering for any special service that might be re- 
quired in the course of the campaign ; and they found 
that each of them, in anticipation of the early death 
that might result from such an enterprise, had written 
a letter which, in that event, was to be delivered. 
Morris had addressed a letter to his young wife, Nolan 
had addressed one to his mother. Under the belief 
that the opportunity for hazardous service of the kind 
they were seeking might be close at hand, the two 
friends had exchanged their respective letters : and 
now, when they lay side by side, the one dead and 
the other unconscious, each of them still had in his 
pocket the letter entrusted to him by the other.* 

When Morris recovered his consciousness he found 
himself in an English hospital tent.t Terribly as he 
had been wounded and shattered, he did not suc- 
cumb.J 

* The letter found in the pocket of Nolan — i.e., the one addressed to 
Mrs Morris by her husband — was sent through the usual channels ; but 
it is presumed that counteracting intelligence was sent by the same post. 

+ I believe that the satisfaction of having taken the requisite steps 
for bringing in the shattered frame of his commanding officer is justly 
enjoyed by Sergeant O'Hara, the same officer whom we saw exerting 
himself at the battery captured by the first line. He had been informed 
by Private George Smith of the spot where Morris lay. 

$ Up to the commencement of the campaign Morris had been keeping 
himself in an almost constant state of high 'training and, by some, 
the possession of the bodily force that was needed for enabling him to 
go through what he did has been attributed in part to that cause, 



314 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



XVI. 



The rem- 
nants of 
the bri- 
gade at 
this time. 



Lord Car- 
digan's 
address to 
the men. 



The first 
muster of 
the Light 
Brigade 
after the 
charge. 



Amongst the remnant of our Light Cavalry, now 
once more gathering together, there was, of course, a 
sense of the havoc that had been made in what, half 
an hour before, was Lord Cardigan s splendid brigade ; 
but, for a while, this feeling was much interrupted by 
the joy of seeing comrade after comrade trail in from 
out of the fight, and in spite of the ruin their force 
had incurred, the men were from time to time 
cheering. 

When the remnants of the brigade had formed up, 
Lord Cardigan came forward and said, 6 Men ! it is a 
' mad-brained trick/'" but it is no faul^of mine/ 
Some of the men answered, 'Never mind, my 
' lord ! we are ready to go again/ Lord Cardigan 
replied, ' No, no, men ! you have done enough/ 

It was upon one of the slopes which look south- 
ward towards Balaclava that the muster took place ; 
and, for some time, stragglers and riderless chargers 
were coming in at intervals ; but at length there 
was a numbering of horses, and afterwards the mel- 



though the indomitable courage and determination of the man were 
probably his chief resource. Morris was able the following year to take 
part again in war service, and did not die till the July of 1858. The 
suppression of the Bengal mutinies had been the task which, in 1857, 
drew him and his regiment to the East ; and it was to the climate of 
India that at length he surrendered his life. He was much thought of 
in our army as a valorous and skilled cavalry officer, and with so high 
a reputation for straightforwardness and accuracy, that once, when a 
general officer imprudently ventured to put himself in conflict with 
Morris upon a matter of fact, there was a smile at the ' impar congres- 
' sus,' no one who knew Morris consenting to imagine it possible that 
he could be the one who mistook. 
* According to another version, ' a great blunder.' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 315 

ancholy roll-call began. As often as it appeared CHAP, 
that to the name called out there was no one pre- < — ^ — ' 
sent to answer, men contributed what knowledge 
they had as to the fate of their missing comrade, 
saying when and where they last had seen him. 
More or less truly, if they knew it not before, men 
learned the fate of their friends from this dismal 
inquest. And then also came the time for the final The km- 
and deliberate severance of many a friendship between disabled 

liorses 

the dragoon and his charger; for the farriers, with 
their pistols in hand, were busied in the task of 
shooting the ruined horses. 

Upon counting the brigade, it appeared that the The losses 

suffered 

force, which numbered 6 73 horsemen when it went by the 
into action, had been reduced to a mounted strength bn§ade * 
of 195 ;* and there was one regiment, it seems — ■ 
namely, the 13th Light Dragoons, which, after the 
charge, mustered only ten mounted troopers. From 
a later examination it resulted that, in officers and 
men killed and wounded, the brigade had suffered 
losses to the number of 247, of whom 113 had been 
killed and 134 wounded; and that (including 43 
horses shot as unserviceable on account of their 
wounds) the brigade had 475 horses killed, besides 
having 42 others wounded. t 

* It will be vain to seek for any correspondence between the result 
of the first muster and the casualties. Many wounded men and 
wounded horses might be present at the muster; and on the other 
hand, neither the unwounded men whose chargers had been killed, nor 
the unwounded horses which came back into our lines without their 
riders would contribute to the * mounted strength ' as ascertained at the 
first muster. 

f These figures may not agree exactly with other returns, but I have 
good reason for believing them to be accurate. 



316 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



C H A P. It lias beeo stated by one who had good means of 
« — ^ — ' knowing the truth, that of all the officers acting with 
the first line, those who came out of action without a 
wound received by either the horse or the rider, were 
only two in number.* 

Lord Cardigan, as we saw, was wounded though 
not disabled ; and of the three officers who acted as 
his aides-de-camp, one, Captain Lockwood, was killed; 
another, Lieutenant Maxse, wounded ; and the third, 
Sir G-eorge Wombwell, as we before learned, had two 
horses shot under him. 

In the 4th Light Dragoons, Major Halkett and 
Lieutenant Sparke were killed, and Captain Brown 
and Captain Hutton were both wounded severely, t 

In the 8th Hussars, Lieutenant Lord Fitzgibbon 
was killed, and Lieutenant Clutterbuck, Lieutenant 
Seager, and Cornet Clowes were wounded. Of the 
ten officers who went into action with the regiment, 
Colonel Shewell and Cornet Heneage were the only 
two of whom it could be said that both they and 
their chargers were unstricken. 

In the 11th Hussars, Captain Cook, Lieutenant 

* It should be observed that I do not adopt the statement as one 
necessarily accurate ; for the authority on which it rests though corning 
from an official source is not itself strictly official, and there may have 
been some omission. 

+ It is said that Captain Hutton was seen vigorously using his 
sword in the battery at a time when he had his thigh broken. — End of 
Note to First Edition. 1 On returning from the guns, he was shot 
1 through the other thigh, and on reaching the English lines, from the 
1 desperate nature of his wounds, was lifted out of his saddle in a scarcely 
4 conscious state. His charger had eleven wounds.' Letter to me from 
a near relative of Captain Hutton's. — Note to Second Edition. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 317 

Trevelyan, and Lieutenant Haughton were wounded. C H A P. 
The wound of Haughton proved mortal. « — ^ — » 

In the 13th Light Dragoons, Captain Oldham, its 
commander, and Captain Goad, and Cornet Mont- 
gomery were killed. 

In the 17th Lancers, Captain Morris, who com- 
manded the regiment, was, as we saw, grievously 
wounded ; Captain Winter and Lieutenant Thompson 
were killed ; Captain Webb was mortally wounded ; 
Captain Eobert White was wounded severely ; Lieu- 
tenant Sir William Gordon also was wounded ; and 
Lieutenant Chadwick, as we saw, was both wounded 
and taken prisoner. 

It is believed that the last man killed was Captain The sup- 

posed fate 

Lockwood, an omcer who has been already mentioned of Captain 
as one of the three aides-de-camp of Lord Cardigan, wood. 
For some time, there was a hope that he might be 
alive ; and there is still some uncertainty in regard to 
his movements during the charge, and the way in 
which he met his death. At the moment when the 
Light Cavalry began its advance, he was probably in 
the performance of some duty which separated him 
from the other aides-de-camp."* Indeed, there is an 
idea that he rode to the ground where some of our 
battalions were halted, addressed a general whom he 
there found, and announcing that the Light Cavalry 
was about to engage in an ugly task, urged that it 



* See, however, the statement by Maxse, the assistant aide-de-camp 
referred to ante at foot of p. 210, from which it appears that at the 
"beginning, and afterwards when ' three parts of the way down,' Lock- 
wood was in his place. — Note to Second Edition. 



318 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, should be supported by infantry.* Supposing that 

< > he did this, and that the brigade moved forward 

before he returned to it, he would have been likely 
to gallop off in all haste down the valley to regain 
his place near Lord Cardigan ; but all I have learnt 
is, that some time after the retreat of Lord Cardi- 
gan, and indeed at a moment when all the remains 
of the brigade had already come out of action, Cap- 
tain Lockwood rode up to Lord Lucan, and, speak- 
ing in a way which disclosed anxiety and distress as 
though for the fate of his chief, said, ' My Lord, can 
' you tell me where is Lord Cardigan ? ' and that, 
upon Lord Lucan's replying that Lord Cardigan 
had passed him some time, Lockwood rode away. 
It is imagined that he must have mistaken the 
meaning of the answer, and that, regarding it as 
an intimation that Lord Cardigan had again ad- 
vanced, he must have galloped down the fatal valley, 
and there met his death; for he was never after- 
wards seen in the English camp, either dead or alive, 
and the Eussians did not number him among their 
prisoners. He was an excellent officer, much valued in 
the 8th Hussars, the regiment to which he belonged. 

Seeing that our squadrons drove into the heart, 
nay into the very rear of the enemy's position, and 
then had no means of retreat unless they could cut 
their way back through his interposed forces, the 

* It seems to have been understood that Lockwood made the supposed 
request at the instance of Lord Cardigan ; but this Lord Cardigan 
entirely denies. The answer of the general thus appealed to was, it is 
said, to the effect that he had no authority. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



319 



strangest feature in the statistics of the battle is the CHAP, 

list of prisoners. With our cavalry so completely in > — ^ — » 

their fangs as to have it a mile and a quarter deep in ^berof 
their position, the Eussians took hardly one prisoner 

who had not been disabled by his own wounds or t heIlus - 

sians. 

those inflicted upon his horse. They took but fifteen 
unwounded prisoners altogether ; and I believe that 
almost all these — if not indeed all, without even a 
single exception — were men whose horses had been 
killed or disabled. 

Another strange circumstance of this combat is the The small 

amount of 

comparative impunity which the remnants 01 our loss sus- 
Light Cavalry were suffered to enjoy after once they our troops 
had closed with the enemy. A detailed statement of closing 
the casualties which occurred after the seizure of the 
battery could hardly be furnished, but I am persuaded 
that they were few. It was in descending the valley 
that our people incurred the main loss. 



with the 
enemy. 



XVII. 

Who brought the first line out of action ? If an 
unwary civilian were to put this question to a soldier, 
he might find that, without knowing it, he was using 
a phrase so technical as to bring upon himself a tech- 
nical and somewhat illusory answer. 4 '" But if it be 

* In the military art there is a very inconvenient want of words 
and phrases with an exclusively technical import ; and the result is that 
soldiers find themselves obliged to affix technical meanings to ordinary 
expressions — a practice insuring ambiguity, and tending, of course, to 
misconceptions. When a military man speaks of a regiment, or any 
other force, and says that he * brought it out of action,' he does not 



Who 
brought 
the first 
line out of 
action ? 



320 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, asked who gave to the main fighting remnants of the 
« — ^ — ' first line that guidance and help by which they were 
ultimately extricated from the enemy's gripe, the 
answer must be based upon a knowledge of those 
occurrences which I have sought to record. From 
this I imagine it will be gathered that, although 
there were individuals of the first line who came 
out on the northern side of the valley with the 4th 
Light Dragoons and the 11th Hussars, the number 
— a very small number — which could best be re- 
garded as representing the first line, was that which 
came out on the south of the valley with the 8th 
Hussars. It was only during the period of the 
advance from the battery to the neighbourhood of 
the aqueduct, and of the movement back thence to 
where stood the 8th Hussars, that Colonel Mayow 
had, in any sense, the charge of the first line. As 
soon as he had joined Colonel Shewell, he was in the 
presence of his military superior ; and he acknow- 
ledges, apparently, that any command which he had 
been assuming in his character of senior officer then 
came at once to an end. It seems plain that the 
main undisabled remnant of the first line was ex- 
tricated from the power of the enemy by Colonel 
Shewell of the 8 th Hussars. 
And who With regard to the supports, there was no co- 
out the operation at the close of the combat between the force 

supports ? 

mean that he did anything particular ; all he means is, that he came 
out senior officer. In that, the merely technical sense of the phrase, 
Lord Cardigan, of course, was the officer who ' brought the first line 
i out of action.' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



321 



on our right and the force on our left, and they came CHAP, 
out in two distinct bodies. The 8 th Hussars on our < — — ' 
right was brought out by Colonel Shewell its com- 
manding officer. On our left there were two regi- 
ments which co-operated in their retreat, and with 
these, Lord George Paget was the senior officer.* 



XVIII. 

Immediately after the muster, Lord Cardigan rode interview 
up to Lord Raglan in order to make his report. Lord Lord Rag- 
Eaglan said to him, in a severe and very angry way, Lord Car- 
6 What did you mean, sir, by attacking a battery in dlgan ' 
' front, contrary to all the usages of warfare, and the 
' customs of the service ? ' 

Lord Cardigan answered : ' My Lord, I hope you 
* will not blame me, for I received the order to attack 
6 from my superior officer in front of the troops ; ' and 
he then proceeded to give an account of the part he 
had taken. 

Subsequently, and after full inquiry, Lord Raglan 
not only determined that the justification thus offered, 
was sound, but also, it seems, formed an opinion that Lord Rag- 
Lord Cardigan's whole conduct in the affair of the ionof° pm 
charge had been admirable. ' Lord Cardigan/ he digan's 
wrote in private, some five days after the action, inthe 



charge. 



* The question whether Lord George as senior officer acquired the 
command of the whole body formed by the two co-operating regiments 
(the 4th Light Dragoons Lord George's own regiment, and the 11th 
Hussars commanded by Colonel Douglas) is one of a technical kind 
which soldiers can best determine ; but the facts on which the solution 
depends are given ante, p. 298. 

VOL. IV. X 



322 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. * acted throughout with the greatest steadiness and 

• — ^ — ' 6 gallantry, as well as perseverance/ 

interview Upon meeting Lord Lucan at a later moment, 

between 

Lord Bag- Lord Kaglan said to him, ' You have lost the Light 

lan and . , , , 

Lord Brigade ! 

Lord Lucan at once denied that he had lost the 
Light Brigade; and, as the ground for his denial, stated 
that he had only carried out the orders, written and 
verbal, conveyed to him by Captain Nolan. 

Then it was that Lord Raglan is said to have ut- 
tered a sentence which, supposing it to be accurately 
reported, did certainly supply Lord Lucan with fair 
means of raising a controversy, and even gave him, 
as many may think, a kind of argumentative victory. 
The Commander of the Forces had no copy of either 
the f third ? or the ' fourth ' order ; and, for that rea- 
son alone, even if there were no other, he might not 
improbably desire to avoid or defer all discussion 
founded upon the wording of the documents. Ac- 
cordingly, he did not say, as he might have done : 
* I ordered — I ordered in writing — that the cavalry 
' should advance and take advantage of any oppor- 
' tunity to recover the heights, and you kept it halted 
' for more than half an hour. I ordered — I ordered 
' in writing — that the cavalry should advance rapidly 
c to the front, that it should follow the enemy, and 
4 try to prevent him from carrying away the guns, 
' meaning of course, as you well know,'" our lost Eng- 
' lisli guns, and yet with this order in your hand you 



* For proof that Lord Lucan did know this, see the footnote ante, 
p. 192. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



323 



1 caused Lord Cardigan to go down the valley instead CHAP. 

' of advancing upon the " heights/' and to attack the < — ^ — > 

' front of a distant Russian battery, after running the 

' gauntlet for a mile and a quarter between crossing 

' fires/ What Lord Raglan did say according to 

Lord Lucan, was to this effect : ' Lord Lucan, you 

' were a Lieutenant-General, and should therefore 

' have exercised your discretion, and, not approving 

' of the charge, should not have caused it to be 

4 made/ 

Whatever, abstractedly speaking, may be the value 
of the reason thus said to have been adduced by Lord 
Raglan, it was evidently one so far open to question 
as to give Lord Lucan an excellent opportunity of 
raising a controversy against his chief. Up to that 
moment, the predicament of Lord Lucan was simply 
the predicament of a man who bad misconceived his 
instructions, and imagined that he must advance 
down the valley instead of trying to recover the 
heights ; but now, all at once, if his impression of 
what Lord Rag] an said be accurate, he found himself 
raised into the position of one who, being mortal, 
and having like other mortals committed an error, 
has had the good fortune to be rebuked for it in 
terms fairly open to question ; and he was as compe- 
tent as any man living to make vigorous use of the 
advantage thus gained. Accordingly, when opportun- 
ity offered, he argued with great cogency against the 
theory that he should have disobeyed an order which 
he could not approve, urging soundly that Lord 
Raglan's survey of the field from the high ground of 



324 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, the Chersonese was necessarily much more complete 
> — ^ — ' than that which could be commanded by any one in 
the plain below ; and that to venture to disobey the 
order under such circumstances, would have been to 
disobey a General who was not only armed with the 
superior authority of a Commander-in-Chief, but also 
with superior knowledge. 

Thus then it resulted that, independently of the 
substantial merits of the question as they stood at 
the time of the combat, Lord Lucan was so much 
advantaged afterwards by the alleged tenor of the 
blaming words as to be able to place himself — not, of 
course, in the right, but — still in the attitude of one 
who can take fair exception to the terms in which his 
chief has reproved him. 



XIX. 

General It might be thought at first sight that, correlatively 
questions 8 with the anger and the pain evinced by Lord Raglan, 
ing P the there would be exultation on the part of Liprandi ; 
the Light but ^is was not so. On the contrary, he seems to 
Brigade. b een thrown into a state of angry vexation ; and 

perhaps, after all — for in war reputation is strength — 
he was right in believing that the deduction of three 
or four hundreds from the numerical strength of our 
Light Brigade could be no sufficing compensation to 
him for the moral disaster sustained by the main body 
of his powerful cavalry — the disaster of having been 
overthrown and put to flight by the desultory and 
uncombined onsets of scanty numbers of horsemen. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



325 



Perceiving, as he could not fail to do, the unspeakable CHAR 
rashness, or rather self-destructiveness, of the charge, « — ^ — » 
he was disposed to attribute it to the maddening power 
of alcohol ; and it would seem that he was rendered 
all the more indignant by imagining that the disgrace 
of his cavalry — his cavalry numbered by thousands — 
was the result of a drunken freak. He found himself 
obliged to abandon that somewhat easy mode of ac- 
counting for heroism when he had examined our 
prisoners. Upon his asking them whether they had 
not been made drunk before the charge, they were 
able to assure him with truth that the men of our 
Light Cavalry (as also, indeed, those of Scarlett's 
brigade who had defeated General RyjofF in the 
morning) were not only guiltless of having touched 
any strong drink, but had been actually fasting all 
day.* For proof of this they appealed to the state of 
their haversacks when taken from them, which con- 
tained their untouched rations, including their un- 
touched ration of rum. 

Liprandi showed a strong wish to learn the name 
and rank of an English officer who had been seen re- 
treating on a chestnut horse with white heels; and 
upon questioning the English prisoners on the subject, 
he was told by some of them that the officer so seen 
was Lord Cardigan. Upon receiving this answer 
General Liprandi remarked that nothing but the ad- 

* It was just when they were about to be dismissed to their break- 
fasts that our cavalry were called upon to advance ; and from that time 
until the Light Cavalry charge they were either kept moving or on the 
alert. 



326 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



C H A P. vantage of having a good horse could have saved the 
< — ^ — - rider from the Cossacks who pursued him. * 



XX. 



Duration 
of the 
combat 
called the 
' Light 
' Cavalry 
' charge. ' 

Lord Rag- 
lan's pri- 
vately ex- 
pressed 
opinion 
of the 
charge. 



It has been computed that the onset, the combat, 
and the retreat, which are popularly comprised under 
the name of the ' Light Cavalry charge/ lasted twenty 
minutes, t What was suffered and done in that time I 
have sought to record. I will add the opinion respect- 
ing this singular passage of arms which was spontan- 
eously and in private expressed by the English Com- 
mander. With but two small brigades of cavalry 
under his orders, Lord Eaglan had cogent reason for 
thinking bitterly of an operation by which one of them 
had been shattered ; and, when writing confidentially 
to the Secretary of State, he declared that the result 
of the Light Cavalry charge was a 'heavy misfortune' 
— a misfortune he felt * most deeply/ J In conversa- 
tion at Headquarters he not unfrequently expressed his 
painful sense of the disaster ; and foreseeing the enthu- 



* Supposing that the prisoners were right in identifying the rider 
of the chestnut horse as Lord Cardigan, Liprancli's words add another 
corroboration (if any such were needed) to Lord Cardigan's account 
of the circumstances under which he began his retreat. There is 
only one witness — Thomas King — who connects the retreat of the 
rider of the chestnut horse with the time ' when the second line were 
' going down.' 

f This was General Scarlett's computation, and it has been gen- 
eraUy adopted as likely to be right. Lord Cardigan at first used to 
speak of twenty-five minutes as the probable period, but he afterwards 
— and with great urgency — insisted that General Scarlett's computation 
was the right one. 

% Private letter to Duke of Newcastle, Oct. 28, 1854. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



327 



siastic admiration which the feat would excite in Eng- C HA ] 
land, he used sometimes to lament the perverseness — * — 
with which he believed that his fellow-countrymen 
would turn from the brilliant and successful achieve- 
ment of Scarlett's brigade to dwell, and still dwell, 
upon the heroic, yet self-destructive exploit of Lord 
Cardigan's squadrons ; but the truth is that, apart 
from thoughts military, there was a deep human in- 
terest attaching to the devotion of the man and the 
men who, for the sheer sake of duty, could go down 
that fatal north valley as the English Light Cavalry 
did. This feeling on the part of others Lord Eaglan 
might be willing to repress, but he could not help 
sharing it himself; and despite all his anger and 
grief, despite the kind of protestation he judged it 
wholesome to utter for the discouragement of rash 
actions on the part of his officers, I still find him 
writing in private of the Light Cavalry charge that 
it ' was perhaps the finest thing ever attempted/ " /r 

The well-known criticism delivered by General General 
Bosquet was sound and generous. He said of the criticism 
charge, 'It is splendid; but it is not war.'t He charge, 
spoke with a most exact justice ; but already the 
progress of time has been changing the relative sig- 
nificance of that glory and that fault which his terse 
comment threw into contrast. What were once the 
impassioned desires of the great nations of the West 
for the humbling; of the Czar are now as cold as the 

* Oct. 30, 1854. 

f ' C'est magnifique ; mais ce n'est pas la guerre.' This was said by- 
General Bosquet to Mr Layaird in the field, and at the time of the charge. 



328 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, ashes which remind men of flames extinguished ; and 
■ — ^ — ' our people can cease from deploring the errors which 
marred a battle, yet refuse to forget an achievement 
which those very errors provoked. Therefore the per- 
versity which sent our squadrons to their doom is 
only after all the mortal part of the story. Half- 
forgotten already, the origin of the ' Light Cavalry 
' Charge ' is fading away out of sight. Its splendour 
remains. And splendour like this is something more 
than the mere outward adornment which graces the 
life of a nation. It is strength — strength other than 
that of mere riches, and other than that of gross num- 
bers — strength carried by proud descent from one 
generation to another — strength awaiting the trials 
that are to come. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



329 



CHAPTER XL 



Divining apparently that the disaster incurred by CHAP, 
our Light Cavalry would chill the ardour of the Allies, « — ^— * 
Liprandi not only determined to reverse that move- 
ment of retreat from the Causeway Heights which 
Lord Eaglan had so swiftly detected, but even wished, 
it would seem, to make a show of seriously offering 
resistance to the Allies if assailed in that part of the 
field. He therefore countermarched the Odessa regi- Liprandi's 

counter- 

ment to the ground near the Arabtabia Redoubt,"" march 
from which it had been withdrawn at the approach Odessa 
of our cavalry, and he moved such additional troops 
to the same ground as brought up his force on that 
part of the Causeway Heights to a strength of eight 
battalions, supported by artillery. 

It is probable that Sir Colin Campbell detected this 
change of disposition on the part of the enemy ; for 
he came to the Duke of Cambridge, and, with a good 
deal of earnestness, entreated his Royal Highness to 
dissuade Cathcart from attacking the redoubts. His 
Royal Highness declined to interfere ; but it is pro- 
bable that Sir Colin Campbell may have found some 

* The Number Three Redoubt. 



330 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, other channel by which to convey his advice. * At all 
— J— > events, no attack took place. I do not imagine that 
Sir Colin meant to express any opinion against duly 
concerted measures for the recovery of the heights, 
but only to deprecate an isolated attack upon ground 
where the enemy had just concentrated a large part 
of his force. 

Delibera- However, General Canrobert and Lord Eaglan had a 
General force in the plain which, by this time, was so disposed 
and Lord that they might undertake the recapture of the heights, 
Raglan. were called upon to determine whether or not 

it would be well for them to use their power. Lord 
Raglan, I believe, still desired to do so ; but the loss of 
the Light Cavalry Brigade, though it did not impair 
the power of the Allies to recapture the heights, was 
a reason which made it more difficult than before 
to maintain an extended dominion in front of Bala- 
clava. Indeed it was evident that the dominion 
which had there been exercised could now be no longer 
maintained without either relaxing the siege, or else 
determining that a portion of the French covering 
army should come down to take charge in the plain ; 
and it is evident that this was a condition of things 
which would fairly entitle General Canrobert to even 
more than his usual weight in the Anglo-French 
counsels. 

Now, General Canrobert, as we know, had con- 
ceived from the first that the advance of the Russians 
into the plain of Balaclava was a mere snare by which 

* I believe he came himself and spoke to Cathcart. — Note to 3d 
Edition. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



331 



they were trying to lure him clown from the Cher- C HA P. 
sonese ; and it must be acknowledged that, if looked ' — ^ — ' 
at in a too narrow spirit, the reasons which could be 
adduced against any attempt to recapture the forts 
had a great appearance of cogency. It was said that, 
with their limited strength, and the great business 
of the sie^e in hand, the Allies could not afford the 
troops needed for occupying ground so distant as that 
on which stood the redoubts ; that if they were that 
moment in possession of the heights, policy would 
require that they should give them up the next day ; 
and that, plainly, it must be unwise for belligerents, 
whose whole prospects depended upon the speedy cap- 
ture of Sebastopol to undertake a combat for the recov- 
ery of ground which they could not afford to occupy. 

In its direct bearing upon what may be called the 
merely material view of the question, the argument 
was possibly sound ; but it had the defect which the 
great Napoleon in the successful part of his career so 
well knew how to avoid — the defect of leaving out 
from the reckoning all allowance for those moral 
forces which govern the actions of men. The events of 
the day had been such, that if they should be followed 
by the extrusion of the enemy from the sites of the 
Turkish redoubts and the recapture of the English 
guns, the Eussians, it was plain, would have to go out 
of action not only with the distinct consciousness of a 
defeat, but of a defeat rendered bitter and humiliating 
by the overthrow of their powerful cavalry ; whereas, 
if Liprandi should be left in possession of the hil- 
locks, and the small iron guns which he had been 



332 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, able to capture, lie might plausibly claim a victory, 
and would have some real trophies to show in the 
Theatre Square at Sebastopol. It is true enough 
that no such nominal victory as this was calculated 
to give mighty confidence to Liprandi's own little 
army — the men who composed it knew the truth too 
well — but it was for the defenders of Sebastopol rather 
than for the field army that moral force was vitally 
needed; and in Sebastopol, as we now know, the 
' victory of Balaclava/ and the guns which, though 
taken from the Turks, could still be truly called 
' English/ were well fitted to be received as blessings 
of unspeakable value. They could not fail to give 
heart to the men — whether soldiers, or sailors, or 
people — who were engaged in defending the place; 
and on the other hand it may be taken for granted 
that if the tidings of so slender a * victory ? as that 
of Balaclava could bring all this accession of moral 
strength to the beleaguered town, the opposite effect 
that must have been produced by Liprandi's defeat 
would have been fully proportionate. 

The deter- It was determined that the Eussians should be left 

motion ^ undisturbed possession of the ground which they 

Allies ' held. 

Sir George Cathcart, who had brought his division 
to the ground near the Eedoubt c Number Four/ now 
caused the work to be manned once more by the 
Turks ; and his riflemen took part in a fusilade 
which appeared to have the effect of silencing two 
Eussian guns. 

At about four o'clock the firing came to an end ; 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



333 



but all grave contention had ceased from the moment CHAP, 
when the Allied Commanders determined to acquiesce ^-J^L-> 
in Liprandi's conquest. He held without further chal- 
lenge all three of the captured redoubts ; and retained 
to a point so far westward his dominion on the Cause- 
way Heights as to be able to forbid free communica- 
tion between Balaclava and the main Allied camps 
by the line of the WoronzofT road. 

With the condition of things now shown, both the close of 
Allies and the Russians were so far content that they 
allowed the battle to end. 



334 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAPTER XII. 
I. 

CHAP. If the scope of this conflict were to be measured by 
• — ^—^ numbering the forces engaged, and the men killed, 
oHmport- wounded, or taken, a much slighter record than the 
which can one nave framed would be fully enough for the pur- 
ed t^the " P ose > but ^ rom i ts e ^ ect m cramping the English at 
Babdava ^ alacla^a, and exalting the spirit of Sebastopol, this 
first effort of Prince Mentschikoff's resurgent field- 
army exerted much power over the subsequent course 
of events ; and, on the other hand, the battle com- 
prised several fights which so happily elicited the 
quality of the soldier, whether English, French, Rus- 
sian, or Turk, as to have a distinct present bearing 
on the warlike repute of each nation engaged, and 
therefore, of course, on its strength, and therefore, 
again, on its welfare. Under that kind of aspect 
the glory of fights which sprang out of sheer chance 
or mistake may come to be of higher moment to Eng- 
land than the objects and the vicissitudes of a some- 
what fanciful war long since at an end. What are 
now the ' four points of Vienna ? when compared with 
the achievement of Scarlett's dragoons and Cardigan's 
Light Cavalry charge ? 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



335 



Told more shortly, the story is this : Marching by CHAP, 
two unconnected routes in the early morning, a por- - — 
tion of Liprandi's forces established batteries with o"^ ary 
which they cannonaded the Turkish redoubt on Can- battle - 
robert's Hill. Upon being apprised of this movement 
Lord Eaglan at once sent down two divisions of foot ; 
but time must necessarily elapse before the troops 
thus despatched could come into action ; and, in the 
meanwhile, there were no English forces with which 
to support the Turks in their defence except our 
division of cavalry and its attendant troop of horse- 
artillery. 

The question was, Whether Lord Lucan, with the 
cavalry arm alone, could and would aid the Turks in 
warding off for a few hours the impending attack \ 
With the approval of Sir Colin Campbell, he abstained 
from launching any of his squadrons in arrest of the 
enemy's progress ; and our horsemen, though com- 
pelled to be spectators of what followed, were not 
suffered to interpose as assailants. 

Being thus let alone by our cavalry, and but 
slightly molested, if molested at all, by its attendant 
troop of horse -artillery, the Eussian infantry pro- 
ceeded to storm the work on Canrobert's Hill, and 
by the strength of their overwhelming numbers they 
succeeded in carrying it, though not until the brave 
little Turkish garrison of not more than 500 or 600 
men had lost, in killed only, as many as 170. 

Upon seeing the fate of the redoubt on Canrobert's 
Hill, the Turks posted in the three next adjoining 
works abandoned them at once to the Russians. The 



336 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



C XH P * enem ^ navm g speedily entered them, dismantled and 
' — afterwards quitted the one called ' Number Four/ but 
kept the other three in his grasp, together with their 
seven English guns. 

As the Eussians advanced, our cavalry fell back ; 
and Lord Lucan had just taken up a position in the 
South Valley, where his troops would cover Balaclava, 
when, by an order sent down from Headquarters, all 
his squadrons were drawn in under the steeps of the 
Chersonese ; but that last order again was presently 
followed by another, which directed that eight squad- 
rons of Heavy Dragoons should countermarch towards 
Kadikoi, and aid the defence of the gorge. 

Notwithstanding the rapid and almost brillant 
success which had hitherto rewarded his enterprise, 
Liprandi did not hold to the purpose, if ever he had 
it, of really attacking Balaclava. Yet by arraying his 
powerful cavalry, with its attendant batteries, across 
the North Valley, he not only showed a good front 
to the troops coming down from the Chersonese, but 
connected himself by his right with the slopes of the 
Fedioukine Hills; and as Jabrokritsky was there 
establishing himself, it might be said that the Eussians 
at this time were an army taking up a position. 

Their array was apparently meant to be the com- 
mencing stage of a deliberate, well-conducted retreat. 

Since the Eussians were attempting nothing against 
Balaclava, and the Allies had as yet no division of 
infantry far advanced on the plain, there resulted a 
pause in the battle. 

The Eussian cavalry however, having before it a 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



337 



great tract of unoccupied ground, was — without any HA P. 
very large purpose — induced to advance up the valley; ' — 
and (after detaching on its way the four squadrons 
which descended towards Sir Colin Campbell and 
quickly turned aside from his fire) this great body 
of horse continued to move forward till it came 
within range of the Chersonese batteries ; when, after 
incurring two shots, it turned aside to its left and 
gained the top of the Causeway ridge. 

Then ended that part of the battle which was 
governed by design, and Chance began to have sway. 

It happened that whilst countermarching towards 
Kadikoi, in obedience to the order last mentioned, 
General Scarlett with six of his squadrons had reach- 
ed that part of the South Valley which lay directly 
under the Eussians now crowning the ridge. 

That which followed was the great fight between 
the Eussian cavalry and our Heavy Dragoons. The 
Eussian cavalry, upon being overthrown, did not 
merely retreat to the ground whence it came, but 
moved off far away to the rear with its attendant 
batteries, leaving the two protruding columns of 
Liprandi and Jabrokritsky in a state of severance the 
one from the other — two wings without a body — 
and each of them very open to attack. 

Lord Eaglan instantly saw his opportunity, and 
ordered — in writing — that the cavalry should advance 
and take advantage of any opportunity to recover 
the heights. This direction not having been executed 
by the commander of our cavalry, was followed, after 

VOL. IV. Y 



338 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, an interval, by the yet more peremptory order which 
v_5Ji_, Nolan brought down from Lord Eaglan. 

Upon the delivery of this order there occurred the 
strange scene which ended in Lord Lucan s conceiving 
that, instead of attacking the heights, it was his duty 
to send Lord Cardigan and his Light Brigade down the 
fatal North Valley, and to follow himself in support 
with the Heavy Dragoons. The first moments of Lord 
Cardigan's forward movement proved the wisdom 
with which Lord Eaglan had ordered an attack on the 
Causeway Heights ; for when the Kussians perceived 
the advance of the Light Brigade, without yet being 
able to foresee its actual destination, the Odessa 
battalions — those battalions which stood on the spot 
to which Lord Eaglan had directed the attack — re- 
treated at once from the forward position they had 
occupied on the Causeway Heights, and formed square 
a good way to the rear. 

The Light Brigade continued to move forward; and, 
for a time, Lord Lucan was anxiously following its 
advance with a portion of his Heavy Dragoons ; but 
afterwards (though still holding his Heavy Dragoons 
in readiness to cover his Light Cavalry during a por- 
tion at least of its anticipated retreat) he judged that 
it was his duty to save the rest of his squadrons from 
the disasters which the Light Brigade was incurring, 
and determined that Lord Cardigan's attack must 
thenceforth remain unsupported. 

Lord Cardigan persisted in his advance down the 
valley ; and then followed the rest of the operations 
which constitute the ' Light Cavalry Charge/ It 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



339 



was in advancing down the length of the valley that CHAP, 
our Light Cavalry incurred their main losses, and were « — ^— * 
reduced to a third of their strength ; but the remnant 
of the brigade seized the battery at the foot of the 
valley, overthrew the main body of the Eussian 
cavalry, and forced their way back through the rest 
of them, owing much of their immunity in retreat 
to the brilliant achievement of D'Allonville and his 
famous ' Fourth Chasseurs d'Afrique.' 

Emboldened by the disaster which our Light Cav- 
alry incurred, and possibly, also, by visible signs of 
hesitation in the counsels of the Allies, Liprandi 
began to reverse his movement of retreat. The 
Odessa battalions countermarched to the ground 
from which they had been withdrawn, and some 
additional troops were established on the line of the 
Causeway Heights. 

For reasons based on the difficulty of holding a 
wide extent of ground in the plain of Balaclava, the 
Allies determined to acquiesce in Liprandi's conquest 
• of the redoubts ; and with that decision — though 
vain shots were afterwards fired — the battle came to 
an end. 



II. 

In ground, the Allies lost the outer line of defence The loss 

m of ground 

which the English by the aid of the Turks had pro- sustained 
vided for Balaclava ; and with it, they so lost their Allies/ 
freedom of action in the country they had made bold 
to invade, as to be thenceforth confined during several 



340 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP. 
XII. 



The casu- 
alties re- 
sulting 
from the 
battle. . 



Trophies 
taken by 
the Rus- 
sians. 



months within very narrow limits, and that, too, with 
great strictness. They remained, of course, in the 
occupation of the whole of the Chersonese ; but there 
was a question, as we shall hereafter see, of actually 
abandoning Balaclava ; and although the proposal to 
that effect was ultimately discarded by the Allies, the 
scope of their dominion on the land side of the place 
became so contracted as only to include the marine 
heights on our right, and just so much ground in front 
of the place as was necessary for maintaining its com- 
munications with the Chersonese by the way of ' the 
< Col/ 

In submitting to be thus extruded from the Cause- 
way Heights, the Allies gave up the control of the 
Woronzoff road, and the time was at hand when this 
loss would become a cause of cruel sufferings to the 
English army. 

The Allies lost in killed and wounded about 600 
officers and men, besides some fifteen unwounded 
English and a small number of Turks who were taken 
prisoners* The Eussians, it seems, lost in men killed 
and wounded about 627. t 

The Eussians took out of the redoubts captured 
from the Turks seven cast-iron English guns. Also, 
Liprandi was enabled to send to his chief the welcome 
trophy of a Turkish standard. 

* I am not aware that any one unwounded Englishman having under 
him an unwounded horse was taken prisoner. 

f This includes some who were only ' contusionneV and also fifteen 
missing. I include those last because I believe that all who were 
' missing ' had been either killed or wounded. The basis of the state- 
ment as to the Russian losses is the official return, to which (by adopt- 
ing it) General de Todleben gives the weight of his authority. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



341 



It may here be recorded, and recorded with grati- CHAP, 
tude, that the English prisoners, upon the whole, were « — *^—> 
treated with great kindness; and I will mention a jjffl^ 611 * 
touching example of good feeling displayed by the j-*^ 6 ™ 
poor Muscovite soldiers. Simple, untutored men, they h ? the 

r J: 7 » J enemy. 

yet had heard so much of the ways of other nations 
as to be aware that the Englishmen did not live on 
that strange waxy substance which goes by the name 
of ' black bread ; ' and their kindly natures were so 
moved by the thought of this that they generously 
subscribed out of their humble pittances to buy white 
loaves for the prisoners.* 

With the knowledge of the kindness thus extended 
to our own people, it is painful to have to add that 
the Turkish prisoners were ill treated. 



III. 

With which of the two contending forces did the With 
victory rest ? If it be believed that — however irreso- victory? 
lutely — the Eussians entertained the design of trying 
to break into Balaclava, the failure of their attempt 
would be a circumstance strongly bearing upon the 
question; for when they ventured to descend into 
that South Valley by which Balaclava might be ap- 
proached, they were instantly stopped at one point by 
the 93d Highlanders, and superbly defeated at another 
by Scarlett's dragoons. If that were all, it might 

* General de Todleben communicated this to me, and I have great 
confidence in the accuracy of the statement. The statement must not 
be understood as applying specially to the prisoners taken at Balaclava. 



342 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, seem to follow that the palm was with, those who 
XII 

repulsed the attacks ; but, on the other hand, it must 
be remembered that our Light Cavalry after seizing 
the twelve-gun battery and routing the main body of 
the enemy's horse was itself obliged to retreat, and 
that the Sussians, though worsted in combat after 
combat, still were suffered to remain in possession of 
the ground, the redoubts, and the trophies which 
they had won in the first hour of the morning. Upon 
the whole, therefore, it will probably be thought that 
there was no such decisive inclination of the balance 
as to give to one side or the other the advantage 
which men call a c victory/ 
The effect But, apart from the mere name of victory, one of 
tie upon the weightiest effects of a battle is the change which 
confidence & commonly works in the self-confidence of the oppos- 
Russians. m g f° rces I an( l under this aspect of its consequences 
the result of the day's fighting in the plain of Balaclava 
was somewhat anomalous ; for the action consisted of 
five several combats not effectually brought into one 
by any pervading design; and, excepting only the 
first, there were none of these combats which ended 
without shedding glory on the Allies, and inflicting 
something like humiliation on the enemy. There- 
fore the effect of the day's conflict was such as 
to be disheartening — oppressively disheartening — to 
those of the Eussians who actually fought in it ; and 
it is probable that for a long time afterwards it would 
have been impracticable to make the Eussian cavalry 
act with anything like confidence in the presence of a 
few English squadrons ; but, on the other hand, the 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



343 



facts were such that, without any actual misstatement C H A P. 
of them, they could be narrated in a way highly en- — 
couraging to all Eussians who were not on the field, 
and especially encouraging to the soldiery, the seamen, 
and the people upon whose spirit the fate of Sebasto- 
pol was depending. Liprandi could dwell upon the 
brilliant assault and capture of the work on Can- 
robert s Hill, and upon the fall of the other re- 
doubts; could pass lightly over the conflicts which 
his cavalry hazarded with the Highlanders and with 
Scarlett's dragoons ; could speak frankly of the won- 
drous pertinacity evinced by our Light Cavalry in its 
road to destruction ; could state that, in the teeth of 
all the forces brought down by the Allies, he had 
persisted in holding the line of the captured re- 
doubts ; could show that he was thus pressing close 
upon the English camp at Balaclava ; and could end 
by producing the captured guns and the captured 
standard as fit tokens of what had been achieved. 
Despatched from the camp of a relieving army to a 
beleaguered town, such a narrative as this, with the 
many and brilliant adornments which rumour would 
abundantly add, might well carry heart to the gar- 
rison; and we now know that the tidings and the 
trophies of the battle brought such joy and encour- 
agement to the people defending Sebastopol as to 
aggravate, and aggravate heavily, the already hard 
task of the besiegers. 

With each hour of the lapsing time from the night 
of the 20th of September, that store of moral power 
over the enemy which the Allies acquired by their 



344 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



CHAP, victory had been almost ceaselessly dwindling ; and 
< — ^-1-/ although it be granted that, so far as concerned all 
those Russians who were assailed by our cavalry, or by 
D'Allonville's Chasseurs dAfrique, the old spell was 
superbly renewed, it is yet, I think, true that with 
the rest of the enemy's forces, and especially in the 
lines of Sebastopol, our patience under the capture 
which deprived us of the Turkish redoubts and the 
English guns which had armed them did much to 
destroy what was left of the ascendant obtained on 
the Alma. 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



345 



SUPPLEMENTAEY CHAPTER, 

LORD CARDIGAN. 



In general, there is but little disposition on the part 
of the world to analyse any great feat of arms with 
the notion of seeing exactly how much was done by 
the troops, and how much by their leader. Under 
the ordinary and popular aspect of warlike conflicts, 
the actions of the chief and his soldiery are blended 
into one glowing picture ; and since it is easier, and 
even more interesting to contemplate the prowess of 
one man than the compound deserts of a thousand, 
the result most commonly is that, without truly learn- 
ing what guidance was given by the commander, man- 
kind are content to assign him an enormously large 
share of the glory which he and his people have earned. 
In the instance of the Light Cavalry charge, this was 
the more especially likely to be the case, because the 
General in immediate command of the assailing troops 
was their actual, bodily leader. I imagine that if Lord 
Cardigan had remained silent, no painful scrutiny 
would have been ever applied to the actions of the 
man who rode the foremost of all between two flank- 
ing fires into the front of the twelve-gun battery, and 



346 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



the glory allotted to the chief would have been nearly 
as free from question as the glory of his martyred 
brigade. But, as in the disposal of his daily life Lord 
Cardigan had separated himself from his troops by 
choosing to live in that home of comparative luxury 
which a well-supplied yacht could afford, whilst not 
only his officers and men but even his immediate 
commander, lay always camped out in the plain, so 
also in the graver business of upholding his fair fame 
as a soldier by argument, assertion, and proof, he 
acted in such manner as to sever himself from that 
very brigade with which his renown had been blended. 

Under stress of ill health, he returned to England. 
There, as may well be supposed, he was greeted with 
the wildest enthusiasm ; and then began the long pro- 
cess by which he mismanaged his military reputation. 
By consenting to be made the too conspicuous and 
too solitary hero of public ovations ; by giving to the 
world his own version of the famous Light Cavalry 
charge ; by showing — he showed this quite truly — 
how well he had led the attack, but omitting — and 
there was the error of errors — to speak of that sepa- 
ration which I have called being ' thrown out ; ' by 
continuing in this course of action until he pro- 
voked hard attacks; by submitting to grave speci- 
fied charges, or meeting them with mere personal 
abuse ; by writing letters to newspapers ; by sending 
complaints to the Horse Guards ; by making himself 
the bitter antagonist of officers, nay, even of regi- 
ments, where claims for the least share of glory 
seemed clashing at all with his own ; and finally by 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



347 



a process of tardy litigation exploding, after eight 
years of controversy, in one of the law courts at West- 
minster, he at length forced the world to distinguish 
between his brigade and himself. He forced men, if 
so one may speak, to decompose the whole story of 
the 6 Light Cavalry Charge ; ? and one result is, that 
the narrator of that part of the combat which began 
when the chief went about, is driven against his will 
to an unaccustomed division of subjects, having first 
to go home with the leader, and then travel back to 
the fight. In such conditions, it is not possible to 
do real justice by merely saying what happened. It 
would be cruel, and wrong to speak dryly of Lord 
.Cardigan's retreat without giving his justification. 
Accordingly, at the very moment of narrating his 
retreat I began to show how he defended it ; and I 
now think it right to impart the nature of his justifi- 
cation with more fulness than could well be allowed 
me whilst yet in the midst of the story. 

So long as he moved down the valley under the 
guidance of what he understood to be an assigned 
duty, no danger seemed to appal him, and of a cer- 
tainty none bent him aside from his course. That 
which afterwards baffled him was something more 
perturbing than mere danger to one whose experience 
had been military without being warlike. What he 
encountered was an emergency. Acting apparently 
with the full persuasion that the leadership of his first 
line was the one task before him, he all at once found 
that of that first line he could see nothing, except 
some horsemen in retreat, and already a good way up 



348 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



the valley."' 5 " It did not, it seems, appear to him that 
by holding up his sword for a rally he could draw 
any stragglers to his side, and he had no aide-de- 
camp, no orderly with him. What was he to do If 
Well indeed might it be said that the emergency 
was an unforeseen one, for what manual had ever 
explained how a cavalry leader should act if all the 
troops he could see were out of his reach, and he had 
no one at his side by whom he could send an order ? 
Lord Car- Even when in the midst of the narrative, I found 
theory* as time to speak — although shortly — of what Lord Car- 
duty of a digan believes to be the true rule of cavalry practice, 
officer His theory is, that a cavalry officer in command of two 
hisdr. m or more lines when about to undertake a charge should 
cesT tan " ^ rst £P- ve sufficient directions to the officers in com- 
mand of his supports, and thenceforth address himself 
specially (in the absence of exceptional circumstances) 
to the leadership of his first line ; the principle appa- 
rently being that, by reason of the impossibility of 
transmitting verbal orders to a distance in the midst 
of a cavalry charge, the movements of the first line 
are in the nature of signalled directions, which offer 
a continuous guidance to the squadrons advancing in 

* That the theory was no mere afterthought, and that Lord Cardigan 
really considered the leadership of the first line as the one task before 
him is shown, I think, by the terms of the private memorandum which 
he imparted to Lord Raglan on the second day after the battle, and 
long before controversy began ; for he there described himself as having 
been ordered to attack — not with the Light Brigade, but — with the 13th 
Light Dragoons, and the 17th Lancers, i.e., with the regiments constitut- 
ing his first line. See note, ante, p. 203. 

f As was said by the Lord Chief Justice, it would be well for men 
forming opinions upon Lord Cardigan's conduct ' to ask themselves how 
' they would have acted in a similar state of things ? ' 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



349 



their rear. The General does not of course cease to 
be in the actual and effective command of the whole 
force engaged in the charge, but he exerts his authority 
over the squadrons advancing in support first by 
giving them anticipatory directions, and afterwards 
by showing them through the means of their eyesight 
and without any further words the way in which he 
leads his first line.'* If, in short, he gives proper in- 
struction to his supports before the commencement of 
the charge, and then proceeding to lead his first line, 
takes care to lead it efficiently, he has done all that 
in ordinary circumstances could be required of him. 

There is a defect in the argument by which Lord 
Cardigan applies this theory to his own case ; for as 
soon as he had determined that (without first riding 
off a great way to the rear) there was nothing for 
him to do towards rallying or otherwise governing the 
fragments of his first line, the exigency under which a 
General may be forced to leave his supports to take 
care of themselves would seem to have lost its force. 
After the conclusion he had come to in regard to the 
hopelessness of attempting to rally his first line, or 
taking any farther part in its combats, Lord Cardigan 
was so circumstanced that he had leisure to look 
after his supports ; and, indeed, there was no other 
public duty of a momentous kind that he well could 
attempt to discharge. 

* Supposing the application of the theory to be confined within 
proper bounds, it seems to be based upon the necessity of the case, and 
to be, for that reason, sound ; but I observe that infantry officers are 
at first much startled when they hear it propounded as a justification 
for leaving the supports to themselves. 



350 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



His state- Lord Cardigan, however, has reinforced this theory 
exp^ana- nd by an important assertion. He solemnly declares that 
when he retreated, he nowhere could see his supports ; 
and after intimating a belief that he could not have 
reached them without pushing his search through 
bodies of Kussian cavalry, he finally submits that any 
endeavour on his part to get to his supports under 
such circumstances would have been absolutely hope- 
less and therefore wrong. 
His writ- In explanation of the course that he took in re- 
pianations tiring, Lord Cardigan has made written statements, 
course he of which the following are a portion : — After stating 
retiring, that he ' gradually retreated ' until he reached the 
battery into which he had led the first line, he goes 
on to say — 6 On arriving there I found no part of 
■ the first line remaining there ; those which sur- 
' vived the charge had passed off to the left short 
' of the Eussian limber -carriages or retreated up 
' the hill. I can upon my most solemn oath swear 
' that in that position, and looking round, I could 
' see none of the first line or of the supports. 
c The supports ought to have followed me in the 
e attack, instead of which they diverged to the right 
' and left. . . . My aides-de-camp were pre- 
' vented by different causes from being with me. I 
c was consequently nearly or quite alone. I have 
c already positively stated that when I got back to 
e the battery which we had attacked and silenced, I 
c could see none of the first line, and no troops formed 
e either on the right or the left. I therefore found 
6 myself alone; and I ask, was it not my duty to retreat 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



351 



c gradually and slowly in rear of the broken parties of 

* the first line up the hill, rather than turn and ride 
' through the Eussian cavalry in search of my sup- 
' ports, without knowing at the time which way they 
6 had gone, they not having followed the first line in 
c the advance as they ought to have done ? My humble 
' opinion is, that it is quite sufficient for a General of 
' Brigade to return with as well as lead the attack of 
e the front line, unless he should by chance come in 

* contact with his supports, in which case he would 
' remain with them ; but it may be observed that no 
' general officer could have rendered any service or 
e assistance in an affair like that of Balaclava, in which 
' all the loss of men and horses was sustained in 
6 twenty minutes, and there were no troops left with 
e which to attack an overwhelming force like that of 
c the Eussians in position on that day/ * 6 What was 
( the duty of the Brigadier under such circumstances \ 
6 In such a desperate melee to remain to be taken pris- 

* oner, or was it his duty to retire % ' t 

When Lord Cardigan declares that at the time of Counter 
his retiring he nowhere saw the supports, he places ments. 
himself in antagonism to a great body of sworn testi- 
mony. J 

Is it, can it be true that Lord Cardigan in his re- 

* Paper furnished to me by Lord Cardigan. 

f Another paper furnished to me by Lord Cardigan. 

% The affidavits here referred to in Cardigan v. Calthorpe were not 
regarded as being strictly relevant to the exact question then at issue, 
and Lord Cardigan, I believe, had no opportunity of adducing evidence 
in contradiction of them. The effect of the litigation was to raise the 
question stated in the text, but not to solve it. 



352 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



The defi- treat met a part of his supports then moving down 
Son thus towards the battery, and that in the face of their con- 
tinued advance he pursued his way towards the rear, 
past the left of the 4th Light Dragoons ? * 

I acknowledge the apparent weight and the general 
consistency of the evidence which has been adduced 
in support of an affirmative answer to this question, 
and I believe in the good faith of the witnesses. I 
also acknowledge that, supposing the supports to have 
reached the guns before Lord Cardigan retreated, it 
is hard to understand how he could have ridden back 
through the battery without becoming cognisant of 
the obstinate and boisterous combat which was there 
maintained for some time by the 4th Light Dragoons. 
But, on the other hand, there stands the solemn asser- 
tion of Lord Cardigan ; there is the mass of counter- 
evidence which he has adduced ; t there is a question 
of mistaken identity ; J there is difficulty in seeing 
how Lord Cardigan, after his encounter with the 
Cossacks, could possibly have come back in time to 
be meeting the 4th Light Dragoons on the English 

* This was the main question raised by the testimony adduced on be- 
half of Colonel Calthorpe. 

f Not sworn and filed in a court of law, but verified by the witnesses 
as their solemn ' declarations,' and laid before me by Lord Cardigan. 

X Notwithstanding the great difference in the ages of the two men, 
an officer who was himself with the 4th Light Dragoons, and who 
could judge of the extent to which smoke and rapid movement might 
baffle the sight — I mean Captain E. W. Hunt — believed that -Lieu- 
tenant Haughton of the 11th Hussars, who rode back mortally wounded, 
was mistaken for Lord Cardigan. From another source I have ascer- 
tained that Lieutenant Haughton (who wore the same conspicuous 
uniform as the leader of the brigade) rode a chestnut horse very like 
Lord Cardigan's. 



THE BATTLE OE BALACLAVA. 



353 



side of the battery ; and it will not be forgotten that 
the officer whose conduct at the time of his retreating 
has thus been brought into question, was the one who, 
a minute before, had been leading his brigade down 
the valley, and charging at its head through the guns 
with a firmness that was never surpassed. 

The question is not ripe for conclusive decision.'" Theques- 

T P .,. tion not 

its issue is one 01 great* moment to the military yet ripe 
reputation of Lord Cardigan, but not, after all, essen- S ion. 
tial to a due comprehension of the battle; because 
all agree that at the time of his retiring Lord Cardigan 
had become personally isolated, and was giving no 
orders. Still dwelling now upon the memory of the 
man who led the Light Cavalry charge — he has died 
since the last sentence was in type — I am unwilling 
to withhold all acknowledgment of what — as contra- 
distinguished from a rigorously deduced conclusion — 
I will call the strong personal bias which my mind 
has received. I cannot, I do not believe that Lord 
Cardigan, when he retreated, met and saw his sup- 
ports advancing, f 

Down to the time of his extricating himself from 

* Some of those who, as is supposed, might throw much light on the 
question, have hitherto maintained silence. The proceeding in Cardigan 
v. Calthorpe was not one well calculated to probe the truth, for besides 
that the question was narrowed by technical rules, and that the evidence 
was not given orally, the disputants were without the means of obliging 
any witnesses to testify. 

t It is the opinion of an officer of great authority who was so placed 
in the field as to be highly capable of forming a correct judgment of 
the effect of the smoke and other baffling causes, that whilst the three 
supporting regiments were advancing, it would have been quite possible 
for Lord Cardigan to ride back between two of those regiments without 
seeing either of them. 

VOL. IV. Z 



354 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



the Cossacks, Lord Cardigan's leadership of this ex- 
traordinary charge was so perfect as to be all but 
proof against even minute criticism. And to say this 
of his exploit is to say a great deal ; for in the first 
place, his actions on the 25th of October have been 
subjected to a piercing scrutiny ; and next, it is evi- 
dent that his obedience had more the character of a 
soldiers martyrdom than of what men call ' desperate 
6 service/ Whilst he rode down the valley at the 
head of his splendid brigade with something like a 
foreknowledge of the fate to which he was leading it, 
he could not but feel that he was giving his chivalrous 
obedience to a wrongly-interpreted order ; and there 
is nothing more trying to a soldier than the notion of 
being sacrificed by mistake. 

The splendid machine which he had been trusted 
to wield was so perfectly constituted, and composed 
of men so resolute that although ever lessening and 
lessening in size as the squadrons advanced down the 
valley, they never broke up until they had entered 
the battery ; and as long as it was possible for the at- 
tack to go on in that orderly, disciplined way, so long, 
notwithstanding all the havoc that round-shot, grape, 
and rifle-balls were making, and notwithstanding the 
slenderness of the thread on which his own life seemed 
each moment hanging, the leader performed what he 
believed to be his duty with an admirable exactness, 
and a courage so rigid, that almost one might call it 
metallic. I cannot but think that by a feat of devo- 
tion so brave, so desperate, and yet, during some eight 
or ten deadly minutes, so deliberately pushed on to 
extremity, he entitled himself to a generous interpre- 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



355 



tation of what he next did when his peace-service 
lessons all failed him.*" 

It has been said indeed that Lord Cardigan's attack 
was deprived of the heroic character which might 
otherwise have belonged to it by the fact of his hav- 
ing acted against his will, after actually remonstrating 
against the decision which consigned him and his bri- 
gade to the fatal valley, and that he had no choice but 
to charge like a hero or else become at his peril a 
wilful disobeyer of orders which directed him at once 
to advance. 

But I imagine that this view is erroneous. In the 
first place, it is not at all usual to strip a leader of the 
glory naturally attaching to his enterprise by saying 
that, though acting superbly, he only was brave under 
orders ; but in point of fact no such dilemma as the 
one supposed was really constituted. We saw what 
Lord Lucan stated to have been the terms of his order, 
and whether his version of the words or that of Lord 
Cardigan be adopted, there was nothing in them 
w^hich would have caused an irresolute man to think 
himself compelled to lead his brigade to destruction 
by taking it down the length of the valley to the 
mouths of the guns then distant a mile and a quarter. 
It was only under the chivalrous construction which 
Lord Cardigan chose to put on the words that he 
could be compelled or even empowered to hazard the 
attack which he made. 

Besides, if I am rightly informed, there was nothing 

* This, as I understand, was the ground on which the Lord Chief 
Justice proceeded when he said that criticism of the man who led the 
Light Cavalry charge < should be a generous and liberal criticism.'— 
Judgment of the Lord Chief Justice. 



356 



THE BATTLE OF BALACLAVA. 



more easy than for Lord Cardigan to let his advance 
down the valley come to an early end, not only with- 
out doing or omitting any act for which he could 
have been blamed, but even without being forced to 
confess to himself that he was so acting as to check 
the advance. The rapid advance of a body of Cavalry 
cannot of course be perfectly governed by orders like 
the march of Foot soldiery, and the compactness of 
squadrons when once fairly launched against the 
enemy is so much dependent upon what may be 
called the c opinion ' of the force and so liable to be 
destroyed by the uncertainties, or the faltering, or the 
impatience of even a few men that, upon the whole, 
its principle of coherence is fragile and delicate in 
the extreme. What the troops of the first line have 
to do is to look carefully to the leader, and if his 
bearing is such as to convey different impressions to 
different men, a loosening of the ranks will begin. 
Therefore, on the part of the leader, slight gestures, 
slight movements in the saddle, slight changes of pace, 
slight licence given to impatient horsemen are, in 
general, but too likely to be followed by the further 
loosening of the ranks, the angry objurgations of the 
officers, and finally by that impotent fumbling after 
carbines or pistols which proves that the attempt at 
a charge has stopped short and will presently cease ; 
but in Lord Cardigan, during those minutes when 
he silently rode down the valley, none could see that 
one small sign of faltering or of doubt which alone 
would have sufficed to arrest the attack. From the 
first moment of the onset to the one when the battery 
was entered the brigade felt the will of its leader. 



APPENDIX. 



No. I. 

In answer to a letter which Mr Kinglake addressed to him, 
General Griffith wrote as follows : — 

( Margaretta, Dundrum, 
' County Dublin, November 5, 1868. 

e Sir, — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your 
f courteous letter, and have much pleasure in answering your 
* questions contained therein to the best of my ability. I com- 
' manded and led the Greys into the midst of the Eussian cavalry 
' column at the battle of Balaclava, and, in charging back again 
' with my men, got surrounded. In cutting my way out, I re- 
' ceived a pistol-shot on my head, and, being stunned and stu- 
' pefied from the effects of the blow, I can recollect little of what 
' then passed around me, except remembering objecting strongly 
' to Dr Kamsay Brush, the surgeon of the Greys, taking me oif 
' the field, but which, after an examination of my wound, he 
' considered it his duty to do. On recovering from the imme- 
' diate effects of the injury, I rejoined my regiment, and re- 
1 sumed the command. — I have the honour to be, Sir, very 
' faithfully yours, 

(Signed) <H. DAEBY GRIFFITH/ 

I consider that this statement places the fact beyond all 
question, and that no corroboration is needed ; but, neverthe- 
less, I here give the statement which has been made on this 
subject by an eyewitness — namely, Dr Earn say Brush, late 
Surgeon of the Scots Greys. The period of the combat at 



358 



APPENDIX. 



which Colonel Griffith received his wound is indicated in the 
footnote ante, p. 133 ; and then it was that Dr Ramsay Brush 
seized the bridle of the Colonel's horse, and led him towards 
the field-hospital. — Note to 3d Edition. 

Dr Ramsay Brush's Narrative. 

In a letter of the 17th August 1868, addressed to the 
' Times/ Dr Brush (who was an officer of the Greys) says as 
follows : — ' I was present in this affair with my regiment, the 
i Greys, and saw Colonel Griffith lead them into the dense 
' mass of the Kussian cavalry, go through them, and into their 
' supports, when the regiment went about and cut their way 
' back again, Colonel Griffith being still in command. Observ- 
e ing that the Colonel was bleeding from' the head, and suffer- 
' ing from the stunning effects of the blow he had received, I 
' ordered his trumpeter to go in search of Major Clarke, and tell 
( him he had succeeded to the command ; and at the same time, 
c perceiving that the Bussian cavalry were again oxitflanking 
' us, I seized the bridle of Colonel Griffith's horse, and endea- 
' voured to reach my field-hospital in rear of the 93d High- 
' landers. We had not gone many yards when the flank charge 
c of the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards was made, which, with a 
' second charge of the Greys and Inniskillings, sent the Bus- 
1 sian cavalry flying a disorganised mass up the hill, and en- 
c abled us to reach our destination. When the report arrived 
' that the Light Cavalry had been destroyed, Colonel Griffith 
c left the field-hospital without my knowledge, rejoined his 
* regiment, and resumed the command, which he continued to 
£ hold throughout the day. The above, sir, is a brief state- 
' ment of facts. Mr Kinglake does not seem to be aware that 
' there were two distinct and separate charges of " Scarlett's 
' " Dragoons " — the first in which the Greys and one squadron 
' of the Inniskillings were alone engaged, and the second in 
' which those regiments were assisted by a flank attack of the 
' 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards and the Boyals. In the inter- 
' val between these two charges, the Bussians retired a short 
' way up the hill and re-formed, the Greys and Inniskillings 
' following suit. Colonel Griffith led the Greys in the first 



APPENDIX. 



359 



' charge, which was by far the most formidable one, and brought 
' them out of it ; and it is the assertion on the part of Mr King- 
' lake that he was prevented from doing this that I must re- 
' quest you will permit me to contradict/ 

In all he says respecting his Colonel, Dr Brush, I feel sure, 
is perfectly accurate ; and I trust that he, no less than General 
Griffith himself, will be satisfied with the corrections which I 
have been careful to make in every one of the pages affected 
by the error in question. — See pp. 112, 113, 114, 133. 

With respect to the passage beginning ' Mr Kinglake does 
' not seem, &c./ I would refer Dr Brush to my narrative as 
given in p. 133, and several subsequent pages. Further than 
is there indicated, the information I have received does not 
enable me to adopt Dr Brush's impression. 



No. II. 

Explanatory Statements laid before Mr Kinglake 
by Lord Lucan. 

The circumstances under which the forces advancing from the 
Baidar direction were suffered to occupy Kamara and 
establish Batteries on the 7ieighbouring heights ? 

It was not possible for Sir Colin Campbell to prevent the 
enemy establishing themselves on the heights commanding 
Kamara. It was very far from his base, and would have re- 
quired a strong force of infantry and artillery. We had been 
obliged to discontinue patrolling this pass a full week before 
the 2oth October, and the enemy were occupying Tchorgoun 
village and heights between that village and Kamara. 

The grounds on which it was judged right for our cavalry 
to avoid attacking the forces which assailed the Turkish 
Redoubts ? 

Lord Kaglan not having acted on the communication sent 
to him the day previous by Sir Colin Campbell and myself 



860 



APPENDIX. 



informing him of the approach of a considerable Russian 
army, and leaving us altogether without support, we considered 
it our first duty to defend the approach to the town of Bala- 
clava ; and as this defence would depend chiefly upon the 
cavalry, it was necessary to reserve them for this purpose. I 
therefore confined myself to cannonading the enemy so long- 
as my ammunition lasted, and to threatening demonstrations. 
We only left the neighbourhood of the forts after they were 
already captured. My opinion was, that the advance upon 
Balaclava could only be assisted [qu. ' resisted '] by the 
cavalry on the plain, and I placed them in order of battle for 
that purpose until removed by Lord Baglan. The soundness 
of my opinion was established by the check and retreat of 
the enemy immediately on the repulse of their cavalry ; and 
be it observed that their cavalry were attacked and repulsed 
on the very site I had prepared to meet them. 

The circumstances under which it happened that the advance 
of the Russian Cavalry to the ground where it turned 
to engage our Heavy Dragoons was a surprise? 

This advance of the Eussian cavalry was no surprise, nor 
did I ever hear it so described. From the time that they de- 
scended into the valley they moved very slow, and should 
have been seen by General Scarlett when still one mile distant. 
I saw them before they crowned the heights, and found time 
to travel over double the extent of ground, and to halt, form, 
and dress the attacking line before it had traversed more than 
half the breadth of the valley. 

The grounds on which it was thought necessary for the Heavy 
Brigade to desist from supporting the Light Brigade in 
its charge? 

Be it remembered that I had carefully divided the Light 
Brigade into three lines, to expose as few men as possible in 
the first line, and that the first line should be efficiently sup- 
ported. So soon as they had moved off, I instructed my aide- 



APPENDIX. 



361 



de-camp to have me followed by the Heavy Brigade formed in 
the same order of three lines. I then galloped on, and when 
very far up [qu. ' down '] the valley I observed that the 
Heavy Brigade in my rear were suffering severely from flank- 
ing batteries ; and with the remark that they were already 
sufficiently close to protect the Light Cavalry should they be 
pursued by the enemy, and that I could not allow them to 
be sacrificed as had been the Light Brigade, I caused them 
to be halted. Had not the Chasseurs d'Afrique at this time 
silenced one of these batteries, it is my opinion that the Heavy 
Cavalry would have been destroyed. 

When the Heavy Brigade was halted, no possible object 
existed for further exposing them, they could only be useful 
in protecting the retreat of the Light Brigade ; and I am con- 
fident that from their position they materially did so. 

The purport of the Order given to Lord Cardigan after the 
receipt of the Order hrought hy Nolan. 

With General Airey's order in my hand, I trotted up to 
Lord Cardigan, and gave him distinctly its contents so far as 
they concerned him. I would not on my oath say that I did 
not read the order, to him. He at once objected, on the ground 
that he would be exposed to a flanking battery. When ordered 
to take up his then position, he had expressed, through his 
aide-de-camp, the same apprehensions. I told him that I was 
aware of it. 1 1 know it/ but that * Lord Kaglan would have 
' it/ and that we had no choice but to obey. I then said that 
I wished him to advance very steadily and quietly, and that 
I would narrow his front by removing the 11th Hussars from 
the first to the second line. This he strenuously opposed ; but 
I moved across his front and directed Colonel Douglas not to 
advance with the rest of the line, but to form a second line 
with the 4th Light Dragoons. 



362 



APPENDIX. 



No. III. 

Statement laid befoke Mr Kinglake by Loed Cardigan. 

The brigade was suddenly ordered to mount, upon which I 
sent one of my aides-de-camp to reconnoitre the ground. 

Lord Lucan then came in front of my brigade and said, 
' Lord Cardigan, you will attack the Eussians in the valley.' 
I said, ' Certainly, my lord,' dropping my sword at the same 
time ; ' but allow me to point out to you that there is a bat- 
' tery in front, a battery on each flank, and the ground is 
c covered with Eussian riflemen/ 

Lord Lucan answered : ' I cannot help that ; it is Lord Eag- 
' lan's positive order that the Light Brigade is to attack the 
' enemy;' upon which he ordered the 11th Hussars back to 
support the 17th Lancers. After advancing about eighty 
yards, a shell fell within reach of my horse's feet, and Captain 
Nolan, who was riding across the front retreated with his arm 
up through the intervals of the brigade. I led straight down 
to the battery without seeing anybody else in front of me. I 
had to restrain some of the officers, who got very much excited 
within eighty yards of the battery by the heavy fire. I led 
into the battery, a shot being fired from one of the largest 
guns close by my right leg. I led into the battery and 
through the Eussian gun limber-carriages and ammunition- 
waggons in the rear. I rode within twenty yards of the line 
of Eussian cavalry. I was attacked by two Cossacks, 
slightly wounded by their lances, and with difficulty got away 
from them, they trying to surround me. On arriving at the 
battery through which I had led, I found no part of the 
brigade. I rode slowly up the hill, and met General Scarlett. 
I said to him, ' What do you think, General, of the aide-de- 
' camp, after such an order being brought to us which has de- 
' stroyed the Light Brigade, riding to the rear and screaming 
' like a woman ? ' Sir J. Scarlett replied, ' Do not say any more, 
' for I have ridden over his body.' Lord Lucan was present at 
this conversation. I then rode to the place from which we 
had moved off, and found all my brigade there ; and, upon 



APPENDIX. 



363 



having them counted, there then were 195 mounted men out of 
670. I immediately rode to Lord Eaglan to make my report ; 
who said, in a very angry way, ' What did you mean, sir, by 
' attacking a battery in front, contrary to all the usages of war- 
' fare and the custom of the service ? ' Upon which, I said : 
' My Lord, I hope you will not blame me, for I received the 
1 order to attack from my superior officer in front of the 
' troops.' I then narrated what I had done as described above. 

Lord Lucan put in an affidavit upon oath that when I re- 
treated I passed eighty yards from him. He was close by 
when I spoke to General Scarlett. I came up to General 
Scarlett quite slowly. I afterwards galloped to the remains 
of the brigade re-forming. 



No. IV. 

Statement laid befoee Mr Kinglake by Lord Cardigan. 

Having been kindly promised by Mr Kinglake that he will 
make me acquainted with the nature of the observations he 
intends to make in the third volume of his history of the 
Crimean war, I am anxious to give him the fullest informa- 
tion with regard to all which occurred connected with the 
charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade against the Eussian bat- 
tery at Balaclava.* 

* The promise above mentioned by Lord Cardigan was made under 
these circumstances : Several years ago — I believe in 1864 or 1865 — I 
sought to allay in some measure Lord Cardigan's extreme anxiety by 
saying that, with respect to those points on which my opinion might be 
unfavourable to him I would call his attention to them before the publi- 
cation should take place, so that he might have an opportunity of sub- 
mitting to me any considerations tending to change my view, and I inti- 
mated that I would do this in the form of queries, asking whether he had 
any further explanation to offer upon such or such a point. During the 
years which followed, Lord Cardigan (in his anxiety to do himself justice) 
honoured me with visits so frequent and with a correspondence so ample 
(on his part) that I considered the subject as exhausted. Accordingly, 
when he adverted to my promise, I submitted to him that, considering 



364 



APPENDIX. 



I commence by stating that the time occupied from the 
movement of the brigade to the attack to the time of re- 
forming on the same ground did not exceed twenty minutes — 
the distance passed over was one mile and a quarter, at the 
lowest calculation — and in that space of time 300 men who 
had gone into action were killed, wounded, or missing, and 396 
horses were put hors de combat Of the 670 men who had 
gone into action, only 195 were mounted when the brigade re- 
formed on the ground from which they had moved off, and 
during the engagement 24 officers were killed or wounded. 

I presume that no one doubts that I led the first line of the 
brigade, consisting of the 13th Light Dragoons and 17th 
Lancers, through the Kussian battery, and that, being the 
first man into the battery, that I pursued my course until 
I came up to the line of the Eussian cavalry. That, being 
alone there, in consequence of the officers of my Staff being 
wounded or disabled, I was attacked by two Cossacks, slightly 
wounded, and nearly dismounted • that, on being nearly sur- 
rounded by Cossacks, I gradually retreated until I reached the 
battery into which I had led the first line ; that, on arriving 
there, I found no part of the first line remaining there. Those 
which survived the charge had passed off to the left, short of 
the Eussian gun limber-carriages, or retreated up the hill. 

I can upon my most solemn oath swear that in that position, 
and looking round, I could see none of the first line or of the 

the great extent to which I had given up my time to him since the period 
when the promise was made, it would be well for him to release me from 
it. He showed an indisposition to do this ; and the slight feeling of anger 
which his persistency gave me tended much to counteract the pain that 
I felt in fulfilling the promise. I said I would fulfil it at once. Accord- 
ingly, I wrote the promised queries in Lord Cardigan's presence, read 
them out to him, and gave him a copy of them. This was on the 15th of 
February last. Lord Cardigan, under the pain which he thus brought 
upon himself, showed at the time a perfect command of temper ; and 
though he afterwards brought me a kind of written protest strongly 
questioning my impartiality, he offered to withdraw this before reading 
it, and after reading it, expressed a wish that it should be considered as 
withdrawn. I said I wished that the paper should not be withdrawn, 
and upon Lord Cardigan's saying that he wished to take it away with 
him, I obtained from him a promise to let me have it afterwards. This 
he did. 



APPENDIX. 



365 



supports. The supports ought to have followed me in the at- 
tack, instead of which they diverged to the right and left. 

I have already stated that the first line did not follow me 
after I passed through the battery in leading the charge ; but 
whilst I was engaged with the Cossacks they passed off to the 
left, to avoid the Eussian limber-carriages, or retreated up the 
hill. 

My aides-de-camp were prevented by different causes from 
being with me ; I was consequently nearly or quite alone. 

I have already positively stated that when I got back to the 
battery which we had attacked and silenced, I could see none 
of the first line, except those returning up the hill, and no 
troops formed either on the right or the left. 

I therefore found myself alone, and I ask, Was it not my 
duty to retreat gradually and slowly in rear of the broken par- 
ties of the first line up the hill, rather than turn and ride 
through the Eussian cavalry in search of my supports, without 
knowing at the time which way they had gone, they not having 
followed the first line in the advance, as they ought to have 
done ? 

My humble opinion is that it is quite sufficient for a general 
of brigade to return with as well as lead the attack of the front 
line, unless he should by chance come in contact with his sup- 
ports, in which case he would remain with them ; but it may 
be observed that no general officer could have rendered any 
service or assistance in an affair like that of Balaclava, in 
which all the loss of men and horses was sustained in twenty 
minutes, and there were no troops left with which to attack 
an overwhelming force like that of the Eussians in position on 
that day. 

Twenty minutes being the time occupied in the affair, and 
the distance a mile and a quarter at the least, gives eight 
minutes for the advance, eight minutes for the retreat, and 
only four minutes for fighting or collision with the enemy. 

Before concluding, I must revert to a subject already alluded 
to — viz., that the only point really to be considered is whether, 
after leading into the battery, and up to the Eussian cavalry, 
and being wounded and nearly taken prisoner by the Cossacks, 



366 



APPENDIX. 



and having with, difficulty sot away from them — whether I was 
justified in returning slowly in rear of my own line, who were 
retreating up the hill, or whether it was my duty to turn and 
ride through the Eussian cayalry in search of the supports, 
they not having led straight, but having separated in the ad- 
vance, one to the right of the valley, and one to the left; 
whether I was bound to ride through the Eussian cavalry in 
search of the supports, or to remain on the ground I have re- 
ferred to, there being none of our troops formed there, or to be 
seen in any direction ? As to my having retired, as it is as- 
serted, under the Fedioukine Heights, the evidence of the non- 
commissioned officers in the printed pamphlet completely con- 
tradict such an assertion. The question is, Whether some 
officer of the 11th Hussars, wounded, was not seen by the men 
of the 4th Light Dragoons retiring in the rear of that regiment 
under the Fedioukine Heights ? 

References appended by Lord Cardigan to the above Statement, 
and by him headed 'Evidence in Proof.' 

1. General Scarlett's evidence, from page 272 to 274 of 
printed appendix. 

2. Lieutenant Johnston* of 13th Light Dragoons, from page 
267 to page 272. 

3. Extract from Colonel Jenyn's evidence : ' I, with one or 
' two others, tried to rally the few men whom I saw left 
1 mounted, but it was utterly impossible to do so, and we re- 
1 turned in broken detachments through the guns, which were 
■ then deserted/ 

4. Extract from my own evidence : ' Xo general officer 
' could have been of any use. The feeble remains of the lines 
' of the brigade could have done nothing more under a general 
' officer than they did under their own officers.' 

5. Evidence of "William Gray, trumpet-major of the 8th 
Hussars : 1 The Earl of Cardigan led the charge against the 
£ Eussian battery at the head of the first line of the brigade. 
' The 8th Hussars and the 4th Light Dragoons formed the 

* Lord Cardigan should have written this name c Johnson.' 



APPENDIX. 



367 



' rear line of the brigade ; but very early in the charge the 
£ 8th Hussars and the 4th Light Dragoons became gradu- 
' ally separated, the 8th Hussars bearing to the right, and the 
1 4th Light Dragoons to the left ; and as we advanced farther, 
c the distance between the two regiments increased very ma- 
' terially.' 

6. Extract of a letter written by Lord George Paget to 
H.B.H. the Duke of Cambridge in 1856, the following passage 
occurs : ' On the advance of the first line, I gave the word, 
1 " Second line will advance; 4th Light Dragoons direct." Soon, 
' however, in the advance, I perceived that the 8th Hussars 
' were bearing away to the right, and they kept gradually 
' losing their intervals, and by the same process their align- 

■ ment, till they finally became separated from us. There are 
' plenty of witnesses who could prove that during the whole of 
' this time I was doing my best, and using the utmost exer- 
' tions of my voice to keep them in their proper place, and to 
' close them to the 4th ; and at last Lieutenant Martin, 4th 
* Light Dragoons, galloped to Colonel Shewell to assist me 
' in my efforts.' 

7. General Scarlett states : ' At the instant when the first 
' line of the Light Brigade charged into the battery, it was 
' almost impossible, from the dense smoke and confusion, to 
' discover what took place ; but a few minutes afterwards I ob- 
' served the remnants of the Light Brigade, as well as the re- 
' mains of the second line, retreating towards the ground which 
' they had occupied immediately before the charge ; whilst dis- 
' mounted men, and horses without riders, were scattered over 
' the space which the brigade had just traversed. I recollect 
' on this occasion pointing out to Lord Cardigan the broken 

■ remnants of his line as they were retreating up the hill. I 
' firmly believe, from the information I received both at the 
' time of the engagement and afterwards, that Lord Cardigan 
' was the first to charge into the battery, and that he was 
' amongst the last, if not the last, to return from behind the 

■ omns.' * 

o 

* General Scarlett afterwards explained that he meant ' among the 
' last of the first line which he [Lord Cardigan] commanded in person.' — 
Letter to Colonel Calthorpe, 1st May 1863. 



368 



APPENDIX. 



8. Lieutenant George Johnston * of the 13th Hussars says : 
' As to the opinion that we ought to have re-formed, &c, why, 
' sir, there were none to form, had it been possible. Instance 
' in my own regiment. We turned out 112 of all ranks, and 
' lost 84 horses ; in fact, there were only 10 of us assembled 
' on the spot from whence we charged. We had 26 men 
'wounded, 13 taken prisoners, and 12 killed; consequently 
' all the generals in the Crimea would have been puzzled how 
' to re-form us.' 



No. V. 

Record of Military Services of General William 
Ferguson Beatson. 

Entered the Bengal Army in 1820. 

Being on furlough, he, with sanction of the British Govern- 
ment, served with the British Legion in Spain, in 1835-36, 
first as Major, afterwards as Lieutenant- Colonel, commanding 
a regiment, at the head of which he was severely wounded. 

For services in Spain received Cross of San Fernando from 
Queen of Spain ; and Her Britannic Majesty's permission to 
wear it, September 12, 1837. 

Returned to India in 1837, and received thanks of Govern- 
ment of India for capture of Jignee, in Bundelkund, in 1840 ; 
and of Chirgong in 1841. 

In February 1844 received thanks of Agent, Governor 
General, Scindia's dominions, for recovering, for Gwalior Gov- 
ernment, forts and strongholds in Kachwahagar. 

In March 1844 received thanks of Government for volun- 
teering of Bundelkund Legion for Scinde ; which volunteering, 
the Governor- General declared, placed the Government of 
India under great obligation. 

* Lord Cardigan should have written this ' Thomas George Johnson.' 



APPENDIX. 



369 



In March 1845 was mentioned in Sir Charles Napier's de- 
spatch regarding campaign in Boogtee Hills ; which service 
called forth approbation of Government. 

In July 1846 the conduct of Legion while in Scinde, of 
which he was Commandant, was praised in general orders by 
Governor-General Viscount Hardinge. 

In July 1848 received approbation of Government of India 
for taking Jagheer and fort of Eymow from Rohillas. 

In November 1850 recaptured Rymow from Arabs. 

In February 1851 took the fort of Dharoor, one of the 
strongest in the Deccan. 

In March 1851 the following General Order was issued by 
the Resident at Hyderabad : — 

f Brigadier Beatson having tendered his resignation of the 
' command of the Nizam's Cavalry, from date of his embarka- 
' tion for England, the Resident begs to express his entire 
i approval of this officer's conduct during the time he has 
' exercised the important command of the Cavalry Division. 

' Brigadier Beatson has not only maintained but improved 
' the interior economy and arrangement of the Cavalry Divi- 
' sion ; and the value of his active military services in the 
' field has been amply attested, and rendered subject of record, 
' in the several instances of Kamgoan, Rymow, Arnee, and 
* Dharoor.' 

Memorandum dated Headquarters, San Sebastian, March 4, 
1837. — For his gallantry in the actions of the 28th of May 
and 6th of June 1836, Lieutenant-Colonel Beatson received the 
decoration of the first class of the Royal and Military Order 
of San Fernando. 

From S. Fraser, Esq., Agent to the Governor-General, August 
13, 1839. — A loyal spirit, so creditable to Captain Beatson 
as their Commanding Officer, pervades the force under his 
command. 

From Captain D. Ross, Agent at Jansi, March 18, 1840. — 
Commendation of Captain Beatson and the officers and men 
VOL. IV. 2 A 



370 



APPENDIX. 



under his command for their gallant conduct in overcoming 
the obstinate resistance at Jignee. 

From the Officiating Secretary to Government N. W. P., 
March 21, 1840. — The thanks of the Government to Captain 
Beatson for the gallantry displayed in the attack upon Jignee. 

From the Secretary to the Government of India, April 6, 
1840. — The high satisfaction of the Governor - General in 
Council with the cool and gallant conduct of the officers and 
men of the Bundelkund Legion in the attack of the position at 
Jignee, which his Lordship in Council considers as reflecting 
the greatest credit on Captain Beatson and the officers who 
have acted under his authority, in bringing the Legion to its 
present state of discipline. 

From the Secretary to Government N. W. P., May 1, 1841. 
— The Honourable the Lieutenant-Governor has received the 
highest gratification from the ability and gallantry displayed 
by Captain Beatson and the force under his command, in the 
reduction of that fortress. 

From the Secretary to the Government of India, May 17, 1841. 
— I am directed to state that the Governor-General in Council 
warmly concurs in this tribute of praise to the Commanding 
Officer and the officers and men of the detachment lately em- 
ployed against Chirgong; and has been pleased to direct a 
copy of Captain Beatson's report of his operations to be pub- 
lished in the official Gazette, a copy of which is enclosed. 
The steady gallantry of the young sepoys of the Bundelkund 
Legion, emulating that of the older troops employed on the 
occasion, has been alike creditable to them and to their com- 
mandant and other European officers. His Honour is re- 
quested to cause these sentiments to be communicated, through 
the Agent in Bundelkund, to Captain Beatson, and to the 
other officers and troops engaged in the service. 

Extract of Letter from Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Sleeman, 
February 9, 1844. — In conclusion, I beg to offer to you, and 
the officers and soldiers under your command, my best thanks 
for the services you have rendered in recovering possession of 
the forts and strongholds which had been taken by the insur- 
gents from the Gwalior troops. 



APPENDIX. 



371 



March 9, 1845. — Honourable mention in despatch from 
Major-General Sir C. Napier, G.C.B., to the Eight Honour- 
able the Governor-General of India in Council. 

From the Secretary to Government of India, July 22, 1848. 
— Approbation of the efficient manner in which Brigadier 
Beatson performed the duty entrusted to him — that of taking 
possession of the Jagheer and Fort of Bhymow ; and ridding 
the district of the Eohillahs after settling their claims. 

Inscription on a sword presented after the Bundlelkund 
Legion was broken up : — To Major W. S. Beatson, late Com- 
mandant-in-Chief of the Bundelkund Legion, from his friends 
of the Legion, in token of their admiration of him as a soldier, 
and their esteem for him as an individual. — 1850. 

From General Sir Charles Napier, G.O.B., Commander-in- 
Chief in India, September 26, 1850. — Speaking of Beatson as 
' one who did right good service when under my command, 
' which I have neither forgotten, nor have I any disposition 
' to forget.' 

Extract from General Order by the Resident, on the part of 
the Nizam's Government, March 10, 1851. — The Eesident begs 
to express his entire approval of this officer's conduct during 
the time he has exercised the important command of the 
Nizam's Cavalry Division. 

Brigadier Beatson has not only maintained but improved 
the interior economy and arrangements of the Cavalry Divi- 
sion ; and the value of his active military services in the field 
has been amply attested and rendered subject of record, in the 
several instances of Kamgaon, Arnee, Eaemhow, and Dharoor. 

The following accompanied the presentation of a piece of 
Plate from the officers of the Nizam's Cavalry, after Brigadier 
Beatson gave up command : — ' We have availed ourselves of 
' this method of testifying our regard for you personally, and 
' our admiration of your talents and abilities as a soldier, under 
* whose command we have all served, and some of us have had 
' opportunities of witnessing your gallant conduct in action 
' with the enemy, and your sound judgment upon all occasions, 
' when Brigadier in command of the Nizam's Cavalry, both in 
' quarters and in the field.' 



372 



APPENDIX. 



Extract from Minute by the Most Noble the Governor-Gene- 
ral of India, September 1, 1851. — I was induced to appoint 
Major Beatson to the Nizam's service in consequence of the 
very energetic and able manner in which he had commanded 
the Bundelkund Legion for two years in Scinde, consisting of 
infantry, cavalry, and artillery. 

Extract of Letter from the Earl of Ellenborough, G.C.B., 
April 24, 1852. — I remain impressed as strongly now as I 
was then with a sense of the obligation under which you and 
your noble Legion placed the Government when you volun- 
teered for service in Scinde. 



This was the officer who, notwithstanding his lengthened 
experience, his military rank, and the high commands he had 
held, was so animated by an honourable desire to render war- 
service that he was content to take his part in the campaign 
with no higher position than that of being attached (with Lord 
Raglan's consent) to the Staff of General Scarlett. And this 
was one of the two officers named with high commendation 
in that report of Generel Scarlett's which Lord Lucan thought 
fit to suppress. 



No. VI. 

General Scarlett's Staff. 

Report from General Scarlett to Lord Lucan, October 27, 
1854— Extract 

1 My best thanks are due to Brigade-Major Conolly, and to 
' my aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Elliot, 5th Dragoon Guards, who 
' afforded me every assistance, and to Colonel Beatson of the 
c Honourable E.I.C. service, who, as a volunteer, is attached to 
' my Staff/ 

General Scarlett to Lord Lucan, December 17, 1854. 

Bemonstrance against the omission of the names of Colonel 
Beatson and Lieutenant Elliot. 



APPENDIX. 



373 



General Scarlett to the Military Secretary. — Extract. 

' Lieutenant Elliot, till severely wounded in the head, was 
* at rny side in the charge, and previously displayed the great- 
' est coolness and gallantry. Colonel Beatson also gave me 
' all the assistance which his experience and well-known gal- 
' lantry enabled him to do throughout the day.' 

Lord Lucan to General Scarlett, December 18, 1854. — Extract. 

' I did not consider it fitting specially to name him [Lieu- 
' tenant Elliot] in my report. ... I do not consider that it 
' would have been justice towards regimental officers specially 
' to name all Staff officers, and I think that the obvious con- 
' sequences of such general and indiscriminate * recommenda- 
' tions would be that but little value would be attached to 
' general officers' requests, and that the claims of all would 
, * suffer.' 



General Scarlett recommended Elliot for the Victoria Cross, 
and the application was refused on the plea that to charge and 
fight hand to hand was nothing more than the duty of a 
cavalry officer. 



No. VII. 

The Strength of the Body of Russian Cavalry under General 
Ryjoff which engaged General Scarlett's Brigade. 

It is admitted by General de Todleben that the Eussian 
cavalry included in Liprandi's and Jabrokritsky's detachment 
numbered 22 squadrons of regular cavalry, with a strength 

* Certainly Lord Lucan discriminated, and discriminated, as I believe, 
without acting from 1 favour and affection,' but still so infelicitously that 
he named and commended in his despatch his own first aide-de-camp, who 
had not happened to be in any of the cavalry charges, and (suppressing 
Scarlett's report) steadfastly refused to allow the name of Elliot to appear, 
Elliot being a man who had charged at the side of Scarlett, and come out 
with some fourteen wounds ! 



374 



APPENDIX. 



of 2200, and 12 ' sotnias ' of Cossacks, with a strength of 
1200, making altogether 3400. Upon the question whether 
Colonel Jeropkine's six squadrons of ' combined Lancers ' 
formed part of General Byjoff's force, and also upon the ques- 
tion whether the squadron which advanced against the 93d 
Highlanders rejoined the main body before Scarlett's charge, 
the wording of Liprandi's official despatch is indecisive. On 
the other hand, General de Todleben's statement is explicit 
enough in giving a negative to both these questions ; and the 
General even seeks to cut down the force which engaged 
Scarlett's dragoons to a strength of 1400 : but, as he discloses 
the cause of the mistake which led him to that conclusion — 
namely, the mistake of overrating the number of squadrons 
opposed to Campbell — his error does not mislead. In support 
of the opinion that puts ByjofFs force at about 3500, 1 may 
state that the body certainly included Lancers (other than 
Cossacks), and that is a fact which could be well accounted 
for if the six squadrons of Jeropkine's Lancers were present. 
As tending to show that the estimate of 3500 might not be 
excessive, I may mention that an accomplished artillery officer 
(Colonel Hamley), who would be necessarily well skilled in 
estimating distances and (by consequence) in inferring the 
numerical strength of a column, was of opinion that ByjofFs 
force must have numbered no less than 6000. I consider that 
a computation of from about 2000 (or, speaking more exactly 
1900) to 3000 is the highest that could well be made by 
any one who does not altogether discard the official Bussian 
accounts. 



No. VIII. 

Papees relating to the Becall of Lord Lucan. 

Balaclava, Oct. 26, 1854. 
Dear General Airey, — I enclose a copy of the order 
handed me by Captain Nolan yesterday, as desired by Lord 
Baglan. When his Lordship is enabled to give it his atten- 



APPENDIX. 



375 



fcion, I anxiously hope that he will not still think c I lost the 
' Light Brigade ' in that unfortunate affair of yesterday. — Be- 
lieve me, &c. (Signed) Luc AN, Lieut -Gen. 
The Quartermaster-General. 



Lord Raglan to the Secretary of State, October 28, 1854. — 
Extract. 

As the enemy withdrew from the ground which they had 
momentarily occupied, I directed the cavalry, supported by 
the Fourth Division under Lieutenant- General Sir George 
Cathcart, to move forward and take advantage of any oppor- 
tunity to regain the heights ; and not having been able to 
accomplish this immediately, and it appearing that an attempt 
was making to remove the captured guns, the Earl of Lucan 
was desired to advance rapidly, follow the enemy in their re- 
treat, and try to prevent them from effecting their objects. 

In the meanwhile, the Bussians had time to re-form on their 
own ground, with artillery in front and upon their flanks. 

From some misconception of the instruction to advance, the 
Lieutenant- General considered that he was bound to attack at 
all hazards, and he accordingly ordered Major- General the Earl 
of Cardigan to move forward with the Light Brigade. 

This order was obeyed in the most spirited and gallant 
manner. Lord Cardigan charged with the utmost vigour, 
attacked a battery which was firing upon the advancing squad- 
rons, and having passed beyond it engaged the Bussian cav- 
alry in its rear ; but there, his troops were assailed by artillery 
and infantry as well as cavalry, and necessarily retired after 
having committed much havoc upon the enemy. 



Balaclava, Nov. 30, 1854. 
My Lord, — In your lordship's report of the cavalry action 
of Balaclava of the 25th ultimo, given in the papers which 
have just arrived from England, you observe that, from some 
misconception of the instruction to advance, the Lieutenant- 
General considered that he was bound to attack at all hazards, 



376 



APPENDIX. 



and he accordingly ordered Lord Cardigan to move forward 
with the Light Brigade. Surely, my lord, this is a grave 
charge and imputation reflecting seriously on my professional 
character. 

I cannot remain silent ; it is, I feel, incumbent on me to 
state those facts which I cannot doubt must clear me from 
what I respectfully submit is altogether unmerited. 

The cavalry was formed to support an intended movement 
of the infantry, when Captain Nolan, the aide-de-camp of the 
Quartermaster- General, came up to me at speed, and placed 
in my hands this written instruction : — 

Copy. 

' Lord Eaglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly to the 
' front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carry- 
' ing away the guns. Troop of horse-artillery may accompany. 
' French cavalry is on your left. 

' Immediate/ (Signed) ' E. Aieey/ 

After carefully reading this order I hesitated, and urged the 
uselessness of such an attack, and the dangers attending it ; 
the aide-de-camp, in a most authoritative tone, stated that 
they were Lord Eaglan's orders that the cavalry should attack 
immediately. I asked him where? and what to do? as neither 
enemy nor guns were within sight. He replied in a most dis- 
respectful but significant manner, pointing to the further end 
of the valley, ' There, my lord, is your enemy ; there are your 
' guns.' 

So distinct in my opinion was your written instruction, and 
so positive and urgent were the orders delivered by the aide- 
de-camp, that I felt it was imperative on me to obey, and I 
informed Lord Cardigan that he was to advance ; and to the 
objections he made, and in which I entirely agreed, I replied 
that the order was from your lordship. Having decided 
against my conviction to make the movement, I did all in my 
power to render it as little perilous as possible. I formed the 
brigade in two lines, and led to its support two regiments of 
heavy cavalry, the Scots Greys and Eoyals, and only halted 



APPENDIX. 



377 



them when they had reached the spot from which they could 
protect the retreat of the light cavalry, in the event of their 
being pursued by the enemy ; and when, having already lost 
many officers and men by the fire from the batteries and forts, 
any further advance would have exposed them to destruction. 

My lord, I considered at the time — I am still of the same 
opinion — that I followed the only course open to me. As a 
lieutenant-general, doubtless I have discretionary power ; but 
to take upon myself to disobey an order written by my Com- 
mander-in-Chief within a few minutes of its delivery, and 
given from an elevated position, commanding an entire view 
of all the batteries and the position of the enemy, would have 
been nothing less than direct disobedience of orders, without 
any other reason than that I preferred my own opinion to that 
of my general, and in this instance must have exposed me and 
the cavalry to aspersions, against which it might have been 
difficult to have defended ourselves. 

It should also be remembered that the aide-de-camp, well 
informed of the intentions of his general, and the objects he 
had in view, after first insisting on an immediate charge, then 
placed himself in front of one of the leading squadrons, where 
he fell the first victim. 

I did not dare so to disobey your lordship ; and it is the 
opinion of every officer of rank in this army, to whom I have 
shown your instructions, that it was not possible for me to 
do so. 

I hope, my lord, that I have stated the facts temperately, 
and in a becoming and respectful manner, as it has been my 
wish to do. I am confident that it will be your desire to do 
me justice. I will only ask that your lordship should kindly 
give the same publicity to this letter that has been given to 
your report, as I am sensitively anxious to satisfy my Sove- 
reign, my military superiors, and the public, that I have not, 
on this unhappy occasion, shown myself undeserving of their 
confidence, or unfitting the command which I hold. — I have 
the honour, &c. (Signed) Lucan, Lieut. -Gen. 

Commanding Cavalry Division. 

His Excellency the Commander 
of the Forces. 



378 



APPENDIX. 



Field- Marshal Lord Raglan to Duke of Newcastle. — 
(Bee. Jan. 8, 1855.) 

Before Sebastopol, Dec. 16, 1854. 

My Lord Duke, — I regret to be under the necessity of for- 
warding to your Grace the copy of a letter which has been 
addressed to me by Lieutenant- General the Earl of Lucan. 

When I received it, I placed it in the hands of Brigadier- 
General Airey, the Quartermaster- General, and requested him 
to suggest to his lordship to withdraw the communication, 
considering that it would not lead to his advantage in the 
slightest degree ; but Lord Lucan having declined to take the 
step recommended, I have but one course to pursue — that of 
laying the letter before your Grace, and submitting to you 
such observations upon it as I am bound, in justice to myself, 
to put you in possession of. 

Lieutenant-General the Earl of Lucan complains that, in 
my despatch to your Grace of the 28th of October I stated 
that, e from some misconception of the instruction to advance, 
' the Lieutenant-General considered that he was bound to 
' attack at all hazards.' His lordship conceives this statement 
to be a grave charge, and an imputation reflecting seriously 
on his professional character, and he deems it incumbent upon 
him to state those facts which he cannot doubt must clear him 
from what he respectfully submits as altogether unmerited. 

I have referred to my despatch, and, far from being willing 
to recall one word of it, I am prepared to declare, that not 
only did the Lieutenant-General misconceive the written 
instruction that was sent him, but that there was nothing in 
that instruction which called upon him to attack at all hazards, 
or to undertake the operation which led to such a brilliant 
display of gallantry on the part of the Light Brigade, and 
unhappily, at the same time, occasioned such lamentable casu- 
alties in every regiment composing it. 

In his lordship's letter, he is wholly silent with respect to 
a previous order which had been sent him. He merely says 
that the cavalry was formed to support an intended movement 
of the infantry. 



APPENDIX. 



379 



This previous order was in the following words : — ' The 
' cavalry to advance and take advantage of any opportunity 
' to recover the heights. They will be supported by infantry, 
* which has been ordered to advance on two fronts/ 

This order did not seem to me to have been attended to, 
and therefore it was that the instruction by Captain Nolan 
was forwarded to him. Lord Lucan must have read the first 
order with very little attention, for he now states that the 
cavalry was formed to support the infantry, whereas he was 
told by Brigadier-General Airey, 'that the cavalry was to 
' advance, and take advantage of any opportunity to recover 
' the heights, and that they would be supported by infantry,' 
not that they were to support the infantry ; and so little had 
he sought to do as he had been directed, that he had no men 
in advance of his main body, made no attempt to regain the 
heights, and was so little informed of the position of the 
enemy that he asked Captain Nolan, 'Where and what he 
' was to attack, as neither enemy nor guns were in sight ? ' 

This, your Grace will observe, is the Lieutenant- General's 
own admission. The result of his inattention to the first 
order was, that it never occurred to him that the second was 
connected with, and a repetition of, the first. He viewed it 
only as a positive order to attack at all hazards (the word 
' attack/ be it observed, was not made use of in General 
Airey's note) an unseen enemy, whose position, numbers, and 
composition, he was wholly unacquainted with, and whom, in 
consequence of a previous order, he had taken no step what- 
ever to watch. 

I undoubtedly had no intention that he should make such 
an attack — there was nothing in the instruction to require it ; 
and therefore I conceive I was fully justified in stating to 
your Grace, what was the exact truth, that the charge arose 
from the misconception of an order for the advance, which 
Lord Lucan considered obliged him to attack at all hazards. 

I wish I could say with his lordship that, having decided 
against his conviction to make the movement, he did all he 
could to render it as little perilous as possible. This, indeed, 
is far from being the case, in my judgment. 



380 



APPENDIX. 



He was told that the horse-artillery might accompany the 
cavalry. He did not bring it up. He was informed that the 
French cavalry was on his left. He did not invite their co- 
operation. He had the whole of the heavy cavalry at his 
disposal. He mentions having brought up only two regiments 
in support, and he omits all other precautions, either from 
want of due consideration, or from the supposition that the 
unseen enemy was not in such great force as he apprehended, 
notwithstanding that he was warned of it by Lord Cardigan, 
after the latter had received the order to attack. 

I am much concerned, my Lord Duke, to have to submit 
these observations to your Grace. I entertain no wish to 
disparage the Earl of Lucan in your opinion, or to cast a slur 
upon his professional reputation ; but having been accused by 
his lordship of having stated of him what was unmerited in 
my despatch, I have felt obliged to enter into the subject, and 
trouble your Grace at more length than I could have wished, 
in vindication of a report to your Grace in which I had strictly 
confined myself to *that which I knew to be true, and had 
indulged in no observations whatever, or in any expression 
which could be viewed either as harsh or in any way grating 
to the feelings of his lordship. — I have, &c. 

(Signed) Kaglan. 



{Copy) 

War Department, Jan. 27, 1855. 

My Lord, — I have to acknowledge your lordship's despatch, 
dated the 16th December, inclosing the copy of a letter ad- 
dressed to you by Lieutenant-General the Earl of Lucan, and 
submitting to me observations upon its contents. 

Upon the receipt of that despatch, I felt that the public 
service, and the general discipline of the army, must be greatly 
prejudiced by any misunderstanding between your lordship 
as the general commanding her Majesty's forces in the field 
and the Lieutenant-General commanding the Division of 
Cavalry ; but desiring to be fortified in all matters of this 
nature by the opinion of the General Commanding-in- Chief, 



APPENDIX. 



381 



I submitted, without delay, your lordship's despatch, and the 
letter of the Earl of Lucan, for the consideration of General 
the Viscount Hardinge. 

I have now the honour of inclosing, for your lordship's 
guidance, an extract from the reply which I have this day 
(26th January) received from Lord Hardinge, and which has 
been submitted to and approved by the Queen. 

I have, therefore, to instruct your lordship to communicate 
this decision to the Earl of Lucan, and to inform his lordship 
that he should resign the command of the Cavalry Division, 
and return to England. 

In performing this painful duty, I purposely abstain from 
any comments upon the correspondence submitted to me ; but 
I must observe that, apart from any consideration of the 
merits of the question raised by Lord Lucan, the position in 
which he has now placed himself towards your lordship ren- 
ders his withdrawal from the army under your command in 
all respects advisable. — I have, &c. 

(Signed) Newcastle. 

Field-Marshal the Lord Raglan, 
G.C.B. &c. &c. &c. 



{Extract) 

Horse Guards, Jan. 26, 1855. 

My Lord Duke, — Lord Lucan, in his letter of the 30th 
November, objects to the terms used by Lord Eaglan in his 
public despatch, that his orders for the Light Brigade to charge 
were given under a misconception of the written order, &c. 

He declines to withdraw that letter, and adheres to the con- 
struction he has put upon the order, that it compelled him to 
direct a charge. 

The papers having been referred by your Grace to me, I 
concur with Lord Eaglan that the terms he used in his de- 
spatch were appropriate : and as a good understanding between 
the Field-Marshal commanding the forces in the field and the 
Lieutenant- General commanding the Cavalry Division are 
conditions especially necessary for advantageously carrying on 



382 



APPENDIX. 



the public service, I recommend that Lieutenant- General Lord 
Lucan should be recalled ; and if your Grace and her Majesty's 
Government concur in this view, I will submit my recom- 
mendation to her Majesty, and take her Majesty's pleasure on 
the subject, — I have, &c. 

(Signed) Hardinge. 

His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, 
&c. &c. &c. 

Before Sebastopol, February 13, 1855. 

My deae Lord Lucan, — It is with much concern that I 
fulfil the painful duty of transmitting to you a despatch which 
I received yesterday evening from the Duke of Newcastle. 

I have anxiously considered how I could acquit myself of 
this task with most regard for your feelings ; and I have 
arrived at the conclusion that the best way is to put you in 
possession of the Minister for War's communication and orders, 
without reserve or comment. 

If you should desire to see me, I shall be happy to receive 
you at any time that may be most convenient to you. — Believe 
me, very faithfully yours, 

(Signed) Raglan. 

Lieutenant-General the Earl of Lucan. 



20 Hanover Square, London, 
March 2, 1855. 

Sir, — I have obeyed her Majesty's commands to resign the 
command of the cavalry of the Army of the East, and to return 
to England ; and have now the honour to report my arrival, 
for the information of the General Commanding-in-Chief. 

I consider it due to my professional honour and character 
to seize the earliest moment of requesting that my conduct in 
ordering the charge of the Light Cavalry Brigade at Balaclava, 
on the 25th October, and writing the letter addressed to Eield- 
Marshal Lord Eaglan, on the 30th November, may be sub- 
mitted to, and investigated by, a Court-martial. 

I make this appeal to General Lord Hardinge with the 



APPENDIX. 



383 



greatest confidence, believing it to be the undoubted privilege, 
if not the positive right, of any soldier to be allowed a mili- 
tary inquiry into his conduct, when, as in my case, he shall 
consider it to have been unjustly impugned. — I have the 
honour, &c. 

(Signed) Lucan, Lieut-Gen. 

The Adjutant- General. 



Horse Guards, March 5, 1855. 

My Lord, — I have had the honour to submit to the General 
Commanding-in-Chief your letter of the 2d March instant, 
reporting your arrival in London from the Army in the East, 
and requesting that your conduct in ordering the charge of the 
Light Cavalry Brigade at the action of Balaclava, on the 25th 
October last, and writing the letter you addressed to Field- 
Marshal Lord Eaglan on the 30th November, may be sub- 
mitted to, and investigated by, a Court-martial. 

I am directed by the General Commanding-in-Chief to state 
in reply that, after a careful review of the whole correspond- 
ence which has passed, he cannot recommend to her Majesty 
that your lordship's conduct in these transactions should be 
investigated by a Court-martial. — I have the honour to be, &c. 

(Signed) G. A. Wetherall. 
Major-General the Earl of Lucan. 



Hanover Square, March 5, 1855. 
Sir, — I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter informing me that the Commander-in-Chief cannot 
recommend that my conduct should be investigated by a 
Court-martial. 

Until this day I have been kept uninformed of the letter 
from Lord Eaglan, which appears to have been addressed by 
his lordship to the Minister of War, when forwarding mine 
of the 30th of November last. 

This letter contains entirely new matter, and is replete with 



384 



APPENDIX. 



new charges, reflecting more seriously than before on my pro- 
fessional judgment and character. There is now imputed to 
me, and for the first time, inattention to, and neglect of, 
another order ; and again, a total incapacity to carry out my 
instructions, and to avail myself of the means placed by his 
lordship at my disposal. 

Charges so grave, and of a character so exclusively pro- 
fessional, cannot, I submit, be properly disposed of without a 
military investigation. I find myself, therefore, compelled to 
express my anxious wish that the Commander-in-Chief will 
be induced kindly to reconsider his decision, and consent to 
my whole conduct on the day of the action of Balaclava (25th 
of October 1854) being investigated by a Court-martial. — I 
have the honour, &c. 

(Signed) Luc AN, Lieut. -Gen. 

To the Adjutant-General. 



March 12, 1855. 

Letter from the Adjutant-General, stating that the Com- 
mander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards cannot recommend that 
your conduct on the 25th October should be investigated by 
a Court-martial. — I have the honour, &c. 

(Signed) G. A. Wetherall, A.G. 

Major-General Lord Lucan, &c. &c. 



No. IX. 

The Nature of the Litigation in the Suit of the Earl of 
Cardigan v. Lieutenant- Colonel Calthorpe. 

The tenor of the litigation in Cardigan v. Calthorpe was of 
this kind. In his ' Letters from Headquarters ' — a book of 
which the successive editions appeared in 1856, 1857, and 
1858 — Colonel Calthorpe had substantially maintained that 



APPENDIX. 



385 



Lord Cardigan, after leading the Light Cavalry, retreated pre- 
maturely, and he had also stated in the same book that Lord 
Cardigan so retreated without having entered the battery. 

In 1863, Lord Cardigan applied in the Court of Queen's 
Bench for a criminal information against Colonel Calthorpe, 
and supported his complaint by affidavits which proved that 
he had not only entered the battery, but had passed on, some 
way, beyond it. 

Colonel Calthorpe being satisfied with the proofs which his 
adversary had adduced upon this particular point, acknowledged 
his mistake so far as concerned the spot where Lord Cardigan's 
retrograde movement began, and declared himself ' satisfied 
' that the Earl of Cardigan entered the Eussian battery,' but 
he firmly persisted in maintaining that Lord Cardigan had 
retreated prematurely ;* and in support of that contention, he 
adduced a mass of evidence which went to show that whilst 
the 4th Light Dragoons and the 8th Hussars were in the act 
of advancing towards the battery, Lord Cardigan rode by, on 
his way to the rear. Moreover, to show at how early a 
moment Lord Cardigan had retired, he adduced an affidavit by 
no less a personage than the commander of the whole English 
Cavalry in the Crimea — that is, by the Earl of Lucan. 

It was considered that Colonel Calthorpe, having thus partly 
shifted his ground, could not be allowed, in that suit, to sustain 
the charge of premature retreat in a new form; and Lord Car- 
digan was not called upon to refute, if he could, the evidence 
which had been adduced against him. 

So, the change wrought by the litigation was substantially 
this : f On the one hand it had become clear from the proofs, 
nay it was even unanimously acknowledged that Lord Cardi- 
gan rode into the battery; and the highly favourable com- 
ments of the Lord Chief Justice added largely to the advan- 
tage thus gained by the plaintiff ; but, on the other hand, the 

* This he did by formally declaring in an affidavit his adherence to the 
following passage in his book : ' This was the moment when a general was 
' most required, but unfortunately Lord Cardigan was not then present.' 

f The actual decision was that the rule obtained by Lord Cardigan 
must be discharged ; but not for reasons founded on anything that occur- 
red in the battle. The rule was discharged without costs. 

VOL. IV. 2 £ 



386 APPENDIX. 

substance of the charge which had been brought against Lord 
Cardigan — the charge of having prematurely retreated — re- 
mained still upheld against him as a charge deliberately per- 
sisted in by his adversary, and one which now rested no longer 
upon the mere assertion of an author narrating what he had 
heard from others, but — upon the testimony of numbers of men 
who (having at the time of the battle held various ranks in 
the army from that of the Lieutenant- General commanding 
the cavalry down to the private soldier) declared upon oath 
that they had seen with their own eyes, and heard with their 
own ears, the things to which they bore witness. 

Upon the whole, the upshot of the litigation was that, osten- 
sibly, and so far as concerned the immediate impression of the 
public, Lord Cardigan was clearly the gainer ; and yet by the 
very process which brought him this advantage he had pro- 
voked into existence a mass of sworn and written testimony 
which, though judged to be out of place in the particular suit 
of Cardigan v. Calthorpe, might nevertheless be used against 
him with formidable effect in any other contention. 

When I had imparted to Lord Cardigan my idea of the state 
in which his military reputation was left by all this sworn 
testimony, he caused to be prepared some ' statutory declara- 
c tions ' by persons present in the combat, and laid these before 
me with great numbers of other documents. In fairness, these 
counter-declarations should be read as a sequel to the afndavi ,s 
filed in Cardigan v. Calthorpe.* 

* Accordingly, if a report of the trial with copies of the amda\. be 
published, I should wish, in justice to the memory of Lord Cardigan, to 
have the declarations which were laid before me printed in the same 
volume. 



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